Redbox was founded just over a decade ago in 2002 out of parent company, Outerwall, Inc. The Redbox systems started popping up more and more to offer customers with DVD, Blu-ray, and video game rentals from an automated kiosk. Redbox now has over 42,000 rental kiosks in over 34,000 different locations throughout North America and has slowly been trying to expand into Canada for the past two years. Here are five things you didn’t know about the rental company Redbox.
5. Redbox is a part of Coinstar
Surprisingly, in the early part of 2008, Redbox was purchased by Coinstar, the company behind the change machines in grocery stores and other locations. They purchased 47% of the company from the original owner (who will be mentioned later) and eventually bought off the rest of it a year later. Redbox is still a part of the Coinstar family today.
4.They have gotten into the streaming industry
Two years ago Redbox began their new service; Redbox Instant. This was another streaming service to compete with companies such as Amazon or Netflix. The product is through Verizon and offers over 4,600 titles that can be accessed from computers, mobile devices, and even the PlayStation 4.
3. The kiosk design changed
The Redbox kiosks were originally designed by a silicon valley based company called DVDPlay. They were used at 140 different McDonald’s locations around the Denver area. Eventually in 2005, the company switched their kiosk manufacturer to Solectron; the company that manufactures the Zune, Xbox and Xbox 360. The new automated kiosks expanded their collection amount being able to hold 700 or more discs compared to the last machine only holding 100.
2. They’ve dealt with lawsuits from movie studios
In 2009 Redbox faced some lawsuit problems with the major movie studios because they claimed the DVD kiosks would negatively impact their DVD sales and rentals when movies first came out. Three of the major studios decided to wait until 28 days after a DVD release to sell it to Redbox.
1. The company was initially funded by McDonalds
Yes, Redbox was created because of McDonalds. In 2002 McDonalds put four Redbox automated kiosks in certain Washington areas but inside they were filled with grocery items. Using the automated kiosks for this did not deliver great results and were pulled from the Mcdonalds locations; however, this caused the company to change its direction and give customers DVD rentals.
Photo by George Frey/Getty Images
