• by Wayne Friedman , July 2, 2018

Although free, ad-supported digital video continues to skyrocket, consumers are still buying and renting lots of individual video content -- digital and physical -- for TV and movie content.

Some 51% of consumers are active in buying or renting physical and digital video content, according to the NPD Group -- up from 44% a year ago.

The NPD Group’s study comes from a consumer survey conducted from January to February 2018, based on 8,068 completed responses from U.S. consumers age 13+. The data has been weighted to represent the U.S. population.

As of March 2018, looking at those who buy/rent video, 49% bought some physical-only video, 33% bought both physical and digital and 18% bought digital only. A year before, the percentages were 56% for physical only, 30% for both, and 14% for digital.

Heavy digital video purchasers showed key transactional video growth -- those who completed more than four transactions over the previous three months. These consumers represent one-third of digital video purchasers, comprising 69% of all transactions last year.

More than half of heavy digital video buyers purchased at Amazon and iTunes, as well as Google Play, Vudu, Fandango Now and Redbox On-Demand.