UltraViolet Accounts Top 19 Million

12 Sep, 2014 By: Erik Gruenwedel

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Apple iTunes and Walmart’s Vudu.com rank as top digital destinations among UV users, according to the DECE

Consumer interest in cloud-based storage of movies continues to rise, with more than 19 million registered UltraViolet accounts — up 2 million from 17 million accounts at the end of April, a senior executive with the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) told an industry group.

Speaking Sept. 11 at the ESCA Digital Europe confab in London, Mark Teitell, GM of DECE, the industry consortium that oversees UltraViolet, disclosed there are 1.4 million registered UV accounts in the United Kingdom holding more than 5 million access rights to digital content.

There were about 1.2 million registered accounts in the United Kingdom at the end of 2013, despite no official rollout or promotion, according to the British Video Association. Online reports suggest there are about 160,000 registered UV accounts in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Growth of UltraViolet in the U.K. is seen as just beginning with three major retailers set to bow UV-compatible platforms in the next year, according to Teitell.

“The number of U.K. UltraViolet accounts is growing substantially faster than the U.S. even though there has been very little promotion and before any independent retailer has launched with it. There has been strong organic growth, driven by word of mouth and the impact consistent packaging has had on awareness,” Teitell said, as reported by Cue Entertainment.

Indeed, UltraViolet users are 11 times more likely to have made an electronic sellthrough purchase in the past year, compared to non-users, and four times more likely to own a connected Blu-ray Disc player or other streaming media device, The NPD Group disclosed earlier this year.

“More than one quarter of respondents are buying more content as a result of signing up to UltraViolet, 10% are making more digital purchases and more than a third said they would be more likely to buy digital,” Teitell said.

The executive said Walmart’s Vudu.com and iTunes rate as the top frequented services among UltraViolet users. Walmart was the first retailer to offer disc-to-digital functionality, which enabled owners of packaged media to access (for a fee) digital versions stored in the cloud.

“Vudu is the second most used service for UV consumers behind iTunes. Home entertainment customers are 15 times more likely to use Vudu if they are a UV user,” Teitell said.

The NPD says 61% of users have watched their UltraViolet content on a TV, with Internet-connected TVs and Blu-ray players being the top two devices for the service. Overall satisfaction with UltraViolet is nearly 90%. More than 70% of UltraViolet users report using a computer, and 60% report using a tablet.

“As consumers’ ownership of connected devices increases, UltraViolet’s role in supporting device interoperability should continue to grow,” Justin Bailey, director of industry analysis for NPD, wrote in a blog post earlier this year.

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