Despite iTunes being seen mainly as a music download service, it has partly helped Disney boost its profits by 27% by selling its TV shows and movies through the service. Since Disney started selling content through iTunes in September 2006, they have made 23.7 million TV show sales and 2 million movie sales, with 12 million TV shows and 1/2 million movies sold alone in its first three months.
It would be interesting to see how Disney’s physical DVD sales compare over the same period, but going by this report it looks like online movie download sales are helping at least this studio. According to this Neowin report, despite Disney titles being sold cheaper on iTunes than on DVD, Disney makes the same profit whether one buys a title on iTunes or on DVD. The main reason for this is quite obvious, as there are no physical disc replication costs, shipment costs or retail store costs involved with iTunes sales, thus allowing them to sell these at a lower price. Unfortunately, not all studios are happy with iTunes lower pricing, especially with Wal-Mart choosing to sell downloads with similar pricing to DVDs.
Thanks to GristyMcFisty for letting us know about this news.
