During last quarter, Netflix announced that 2.7 million Americans still get their DVDs mailed to them every month. While this is just a fraction of the service’s 58 million U.S. streaming subscribers, it’s more than even the biggest Live TV Streaming Service, Sling TV, who had 2.4 million subscribers at the end of 2018.
With the growth of streaming, why are customer still subscribing to receive DVDs by mail? While some might have signed-up and forgotten to cancel, there appears to be a very good reasons why others keep the service. According to a report from CNN, some of it comes down to internet access. Some of the 24 million Americans without broadband, just don’t have the bandwidth to subscribe to a streaming service.
But according to Netflix, who rebranded the DVD-by-mail business to DVD.com, most of their customers are actually in coastal cities like New York and San Francisco. While the streaming service’s online library of films are less than 6,000 — the company has more than 100,000 different titles available by mail. Due to film windowing, DVD customers get access to new releases months ahead of when they appear on any streaming service.
For $7.99 a month for a DVD out-at-a-time, it can be a pretty good deal too. To rent a movie online, it costs ~$5 on services like iTunes, VUDU, or Fandango Now. On your second movie, you’ll end up ahead. Maybe it’s time to dust off your old DVD player?