DVDPlay installs movie rental kiosks in Hawaii

UPDATE: Company expands to Safeway stores in the Islands

By Danny King -- Video Business, 11/20/2008

NOV. 20 | Aloha, in DVDPlay’s case, means “hello.”

The No. 3 U.S. movie-rental kiosk operator said this week that it’s expanding to Hawaii in an attempt to gain ground on larger competitors Redbox and TNR/Moviecube. The company, which already has about 1,400 kiosks on the mainland, will have machines in 16 of the 19 Safeway stores in Hawaii.

DVDPlay’s machines, which hold about 500 movie titles each, will be installed in some Safeway grocery store outlets on the islands of Oahu, Maui and Hawaii, DVDPlay said in a statement.

Closely held DVDPlay, which trails Coinstar's Redbox unit and TNR/Moviecube among movie-rental kiosk operators, said in September that it dropped the price of its daily rentals to $1 from $1.49 to match its larger rivals.

DVDPlay is trying to get a larger piece of a movie-kiosk industry in which U.S. sales will triple between 2007 and 2010 as store-rental revenue declines, according to Convergence Consulting Group.

A search on the Web sites of TNR and Redbox reveals no kiosks operated by those companies in the Honolulu area.

DVDXpress, which is owned by Redbox majority owner Coinstar, has 21 kiosks at Foodland, Sack N Save and Longs Drugs outlets in Hawaii, including eight in the Honolulu area, according to the DVDXpress Web site.