According to the NPD Group, as TV-connected devices become commonplace in U.S. homes, more consumers are choosing to rent and purchase digital movies. As of August, 61 million households in the United States had at least one Internet-connected TV, video game console, Blu-ray Disc player or streaming media player, representing year-over-year growth of 3 million homes. Specifically, households with an Internet-connected TV increased 20%, and those with streaming media players grew 17%. At the same time, digital movie purchase and rental transactions increased 19% in the first half of 2018.
"Growth in digital movie transactions is being driven, in part, by access to TV-connected devices as an increasing number of viewers can simply buy and rent movies right in their living room," said John Buffone, executive director, industry analyst, NPD Connected Intelligence. "While greater access begets consumption, certain digital movie providers facilitate ownership over renting."
Among the top five digital movie providers, iTunes users have the highest propensity to buy rather than rent, because Apple's movie consumers tend to be more affluent and more apt to collect movies. In the 12 months ending August 2018, 24% of iTunes movie transactions were motivated by a desire to build a digital collection, leading to more buying than renting, according to NPD's VideoWatch Digital service. Vudu customers were also more ownership-focused than the average video consumer, as 20% of such transactions were motivated by collecting. In contrast, collecting movies drove only 13% of Amazon Video digital movie transactions, 9% of Google Play movie transactions, and 4% of Microsoft Store movie transactions.
"It's long been known that collectability drives ownership, and that's no different in the digital era," said Ricardo Solar, president of media entertainment for NPD. "Movie fans will always want to own great films; as such, provider-agnostic services like Movies Anywhere are critical for enabling digital sales growth."
NPD surveyed 5,677 U.S. consumers, aged 18 and older from diverse regions and demographical backgrounds from July 30 through Aug. 7.