Wal-Mart is runaway leader in DVD

DSN Retailing Today, August 16, 2004

Everyone knows Wal-Mart is the biggest DVD retailer in the country, but a new tracking service shows its market share is even larger than most people thought and hits nearly 50% on some titles.

According to the NPD Group's new VideoWatch video tracking service, Wal-Mart accounts for 37% of all new DVD purchases in the United States, much higher than the 25% to 30% that most analysts estimate. Best Buy comes in a distant second with 13% of the market and Blockbuster is in third with 6%. Rounding out the top retailers are Costco, Target and Circuit City who combine for 13% of the market.

The report notes that, not surprisingly, the leading DVD retailers are the ones that offer the lowest prices. The price of a DVD at the top five retailers averages $15.41, which is 11% below the overall average.

Rather than rely on point-of-sale information, which most retailers don't want to share, the NPD Group is using information on video purchasers culled from surveys of more than 3,000 consumers each week. That information is pooled to keep track of where consumers make their DVD buys each month and what titles they're buying.

"We believe [VideoWatch] will be a benchmark for consumer information about specific video titles, retailers and genres," said Russ Crupnick, vp of The NPD Group.

VideoWatch also focuses on where consumers make their buys on specific titles. It notes that nearly 50% of all copies of the Eddie Murphy comedy "The Haunted Mansion from Disney" were rung up at Wal-Mart stores, as were 39% of all titles produced by Walt Disney Studios.

Blockbuster was tabbed as the market leader in VHS and DVD rentals with 42% of the market, followed by Hollywood Entertainment. Online retailer Netflix made a surprisingly strong showing in the survey, capturing 9.8% of the market.

VideoWatch also zeroes in on the demographics of consumers who buy DVDs at a specific retailer. The new report focused on consumers who purchased "Finding Nemo" at Costco warehouses. It found that two-thirds of buyers were women and that half of those who bought "Finding Nemo" had not seen the movie in theaters.

The findings also provide information that could prove useful to studios when it comes to marketing a title. More than 18% of buyers said a special "Finding Nemo" in-store display influenced their purchase, and 20% said a TV ad motivated them. Thirty-nine percent of the buyers also bought a food or snack item during their visit, while 15% bought a book or magazine.