Port Washington, N.Y. – The electronic sell-through (EST) TV and movie market has grown to more than $1 billion since 2012, representing almost 14 percent of the money spent on physical and digital home video purchases in 2013, according to a new study from The NPD Group.
Transactions for EST videos grew 68 percent year over year in the first quarter, accounting for 10 percent of all physical and digital movie purchases, according to NPD’s “EST: Analysis and Perspective” report.
Despite the improved growth of EST movies, EST TV show unit volume is still a much more significant part of the total EST market.
“Much of the growth in EST is being driven by new digital buyers being drawn into the market,” said Mark Kirstein, NPD Group entertainment president. “Most of the 11 million EST consumers are purchasing digital transactions in addition to physical DVDs and Blu-ray discs. Only a small percentage exclusively purchase digital.”
The EST market is getting a boost from earlier release windows, precipitated by new multichannel video programming distributors (MVPD) and digital retailers joining the market, the study shows.
“Comcast joined Verizon as the second major MVPD to offer EST and we expect more to join the EST market moving forward,” said Kirstein. “EST will become an important complement to video-on-demand, TV everywhere and traditional pay-TV services, as it drives incremental revenue and contributes to subscriber retention.”