NPD: Consumers rapidly warming to digital movie downloads

Electronic sell-through (EST), whereby consumers pay a one-time fee to download a media file, is set to become a “legitimate alternative” to buying physical products such as DVDs, a leading researcher has claimed.

Justin Bailey, director, industry analysis entertainment at NPD Group, said that although there is still a long way to go before the media industry can be comfortable that consumers will overwhelmingly adopt digital downloads of film and TV titles, “there is solid evidence that consumers, or at least early adopters, are well aware of digital sell-through.”

Writing in his blog, the researcher said: “NPD data shows EST movie unit growth was nearly triple the unit growth in EST TV sales for 2013 compared to 2012.

“Further, while much of the early EST sales were on episodic TV content, we have found that in 2013, 46 percent of all EST dollar volume came from movies. Even though physical movie sales have declined, at least some consumers (albeit still small) have abandoned physical disc buying and moved to EST.”

Bailey added that it was encouraging to see digital downloads of movies growing so rapidly.

“Looking beyond the early window, consumers are finding that digital movie ownership is a useful extension of physical ownership, not the scary unknown once believed,” he said.