The Digital Entertainment Group (DEG) has reported that consumer spending on movies rose in the first quarter of the year, the first such rise in many years. Consumers spending increased by 2.5 percent for the quarter to $4.45 billion, which came on the back of a staggering 545.5 percent increase in subscription-based streaming over the same period. However, bricks-and-mortar retail outlets continue to suffer, with rentals from stores down a precipitous 39.4 percent.
In further evidence that bills such as SOPA may not be necessary, consumers spent $2.06 billion on Blu-ray discs and DVDs over January to the end of March, only down 1 percent over the same period in 2011 where $2.07 billion sales were recorded. Although DVD sales were down, Blu-ray sales increased by 23 percent suggesting that consumers are still interested in owning optical media, at least while its continues to offer better overall visual quality than online streaming services.
At the same time, however, Netflix led the charge in converting disc renters to its subscription streaming services, helping to push overall digital entertainment consumption over the top for the quarter. Video-on-demand services were also more popular, growing by 6 percent.
Also of note, the studio-backed cloud ‘digital locker’ service UltraViolet has now hit the 2 million user account milestone
