iTunes on Movie Share Upswing: Report Credits AirPlay and iPad

  • The recent IHS Screen Digest Media Research report indicates that Apple’s iTunes held the number one spot for movie electronic sell-through (EST) and Internet video on demand (iVOD) with 65.8 percent of the market in the first half of 2011. The Zune Video Marketplace was second with 16.2 percent, while Walmart’s Vudu came in third with 5.3 percent.
  • The research suggests much of Apple’s success can be traced to AirPlay which allows you to stream wirelessly to other devices including TVs.
  • “IHS believes that the ability to stream media from Macs or iOS devices to an Apple TV or third-party AirPlay receiver has prompted users to buy more movies from iTunes — presumably so they can AirPlay them to somewhere else,” reports Ars Technica.
  • It should be noted that Amazon spent this period shifting its strategy to streaming video on demand (SVOD), which IHS ranks in a separate space from iVOD. According to the article: “Amazon still saw a small bump from 4 percent in the first half of 2010 to 4.2 percent a year later, showing that users are still sticking by Amazon’s ‘old’ service.”