The world online film market is expected to reach a value of £2.7 billion by 2017 as the prevalence of online streaming services becomes more and more popular. United Leeds Endeavours looks at why the technology has become so popular.
United Leeds Endeavours is a direct marketing and sales company that works with a number of clients in the entertainment industry. They are well aware of the increasing popularity of DVD rental and streaming services like Lovefilm.com and reported recently that the streaming services for Lovefilm.com has overtaken traditional DVDs for the first time. Consequently they weren’t surprised at the estimation released today. Alongside streaming, downloading movies from the internet has become much easier as prices have fallen and internet broadband has become faster and faster.
United Leeds Endeavours understands that there are a number of reasons why online films are becoming increasingly popular. They include the rising cinema ticket prices, the ability to play videos on devices such as PDAs, mobile phones and iPads as well as the ever increasing popularity of films. Though at the moment most of the revenue for online films comes from the download-to-own market, as the recession has hit there has been an increasing swing towards online film rentals and streaming. United Leeds Endeavours believes that with the introduction of superfast broadband across the UK on-demand streaming will become more and more popular.
A representative for United Leeds Endeavours said, “We watch these figures very closely as they are essential information to our clients, but we have seen first-hand the rise of online streaming services in the UK from the likes of Lovefilm.com and others. Consumers are becoming far more savvy and want to try a film first before they buy it. It they don’t enjoy something they’ve watched then they haven’t spent £9.99 buying it. If they love it they can go ahead onto iTunes and buy it. We think this market is going to explode as the technology and choice gets better and better.”
