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On the Anniversary of Qwikster, Netflix Disc Rental Subscriber Share Down 23 Percent

Wed Sep 19, 2012 at 12:00 PM ET
Tags: Netflix, Qwikster, Industry Trends, Rentals (all tags)

The NPD also says that disc renting is down overall, in correlation with the closure of rental locations.

A year ago, Netflix decided to try something new. Instead of a single service that offered both discs and streaming content, they would break off the disc-based rentals into a separate service called Qwikster. It should be obvious, but the idea didn't work.

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The result of the Qwikster announcement, coupled with price increases across the board, was instant dissatisfaction from disc renters. Now, a year later, the popularity of Netflix disc rentals has decreased. A year ago, 35 percent of Netflix customers rented discs, while now they're down to 27 percent.

This seems to be part of a general trend away from disc rentals in general, which are down 40 percent from last year. It doesn't help that there's also been a large decline in the amount of renters on the market. The biggest, and likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future, is Redbox.

Source: Home Media Magazine

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