Netflix wins first round?
Rueters is way behind the times. Today, they reported that Netflix won round one by surviving the onslaught of Blockbuster Online. Apparently, the world has forgotten about how they already beat a little company called Wal Mart, so I guess they really won round 2… which Kiosk.net reported back in July of ‘05. In the near future when Blockbuster either A) scraps its online store or B) completely goes under, I guess Netflix will have won round 3 completely giving round 2 a miss. Although now that the year is officially coming to an end, this is a pretty good time for a recap.
This year was about Blockbuster taking a run at us,” Netflix Chief Executive Reed Hastings told Reuters at the company’s Beverly Hills offices. “They chopped price. They emptied their balance sheet.”
But despite Blockbuster’s costly offensive, Hastings said Netflix was on track for net subscriber additions of 1.5 million for 2005 for a total of 4.1 million — the midpoint of its target range
It may also be prudent to mention Amazon.com in the growing list of companies thwarted by Netflix. As reported by Kiosk like a year ago or whatever, Amazon essentially ditched its plans to launch a dvd-by-mail service in the U.S., relegating itself to the U.K. and Germany, where Netflix is not yet well established.