- Netflix has announced that it delivered 5 billion DVDs since launching the mailing service more than 20 years ago
Netflix recently announced that it delivered 5 billion DVDs since it launched the mailing service over 20 years ago. The Netflix team celebrated with a countdown and a party. The 5 billionth disc that was shipped was Paramount’s Rocketman.
“The most heartfelt thank you to our incredible members that have been with us for the past 21 years of DVD Netflix. Five billion discs delivered is a huge milestone and we owe it all to our amazing members and team members,” said Netflix in a tweet:
5,000,000,000 shipments. F I V E B I L L I O N .
The most heartfelt thank you to our incredible members that have been with us for the past 21 years of DVD Netflix. Five billion discs delivered is a huge milestone and we owe it all to our amazing members and team members. pic.twitter.com/Eg1bjEMtcx
— DVD Netflix (@dvdnetflix) August 26, 2019
Netflix has originally launched the monthly subscription service back in 1998. And less than 10 years later, Netflix had shipped its billionth rental and set up a streaming service. Last month, Netflix revealed that its disc rental service was at more than 2.4 million people compared to 2.9 million the previous year. This division generated $45.8 million in profit on revenue of $76.2 million, according to Media Play News.
Netflix runs 17 distribution centers for shipping DVDs to these subscribers. This is down from 50 distribution centers at the peak of the DVD mailing service. The first DVD disc that was shipped was Beetlejuice.
In the late 1990s, Netflix was losing money on its DVD mailing service. Netflix’s DVD mailing service posted an $11 million loss at the end of 1998. And one year later, it went up to $29.8 million. And the year after that, it was $57.4 million when the dot-com bust happened.
Netflix CEO and co-founder Reed Hastings had offered to sell the disc rental service to Blockbuster in 2000 for $50 million. But Blockbuster decided not to pursue the acquisition and it launched a competing disc rental service.
Later that year, Netflix’s chief content officer Ted Sarandos and former VP of business development and strategic alliances Mitch Lowe (now CEO of MoviePass) went to a trade show in Indian Wells, California to promote the service — which had 300,000 subscribers at the time. Then Netflix started hitting 1 million discs being shipped per day in 2005. And then it hit the 4 billionth disc shipped mark in 2013.
In the U.S., Netflix charges $7.99 per month for 1 standard DVD disc out at a time / unlimited per month or $9.99 per month for HD Blu-ray versions. And it costs $11.99 per month for 2 standard DVD discs out a time / unlimited per month or $14.99 per month for HD Blu-ray versions.
