Digital film sales quadrupled in five years

As household TV screens continue to increase in size, so do the sales and rentals of digital films, according to consumer research company Mintel.

The company states that digital downloads, subscription streaming, and VoD film sales have more than quadrupled in the five year period between 2007 and 2012, up from $1.3 billion to $5.5 billion.

Mintel forecasts that digital sales will increase tenfold in the 10 year period between 2007 and 2017.

“We live in a time of instant gratification and the idea of waiting for a movie to arrive in the mail or actually driving to a store to get one is an idea of the past,” says Billy Hulkower, senior technology analyst at Mintel. “Increased acceptance of all intangible media, including music, photos, books and games is a driver with consumers increasingly acclimated to the immediacy of all digital formats.”

Traditional DVD rentals are still the most popular way to rent movies, with 32% of online consumers renting individual discs via this method in the past 30 days. However, online streaming services such as Netflix or Amazon Instant Video and pay TV are gaining in popularity over physical disc rental. A quarter of respondents say they have used online streaming in the past 30 days and 22% have used a pay TV method.

You can read Mintel’s press release here.