Waiting To Exhale in the Home Video Market

The differences in our reports is due in part do different methodologies, but we also believe that it reflects real differences in the what's actually happening. As the weeks pass, the picture on this title will become clearer and perhaps some of those differences in reporting will not be as great as they now appear — or perhaps the weight of evidence will favor one view over another.

Waiting To Exhale: Rental Activity

Rentals on this title suggest that around 600 thousand units have found their way into the rental pipeline. Typically, a video store owner will accept a lower turns per copy on a tape purchased at sell through prices. For this title, the wholesale price to the rental store operator would be in the $14 to $15 range. At current rental pricing, all it would take is 5 rentals to pay for the tape, so a turns per copy in the 2.5 turns per week range is entirely acceptable. At 2.5 turns per week and a peak rental week of about 1.7 million transactions, we would estimate a total of 680 thousand tapes in the video rental pipeline.

Some trade sources are reporting a higher average turns per unit on this title, however, which would imply a lower number of tapes in the rental pipeline. For example, Video Business is reporting a 3.5 turns per unit figure for Waiting To Exhale which would suggest that only 485 thousand units are in the rental pipeline. We are more comfortable, however, with a 600 thousand unit estimate.

Waiting To Exhale: Purchase Activity

Consumer purchases on this title were steady during the first two weeks, totalling around 1.2 million units. Purchase activity then peaked during the third week at 609 thousand units. In the fourth and fifth weeks, we have seen consumer purchases drop off somewhat, with 493 thousand and 477 thousand sold respectively, reaching a cumulative total of 2.8 million consumer purchases.
 

Waiting To Exhale: Average Pricing

Consumer paid average pricing on this title declined from $15.06 per unit purchased in the first week of release to an average of $14.08 in the fourth and fifth weeks. These declines suggest that video rental stores are already beginning to release used rental product to purchasers in their stores.