Audio Video News

If you haven’t yet embraced streaming and still order discs through the mail from Netflix, you may be worried that your disc days are numbered. But even as streaming booms with continued aggressive expansion and more than 65 million customers worldwide, Netflix is not ready to back away from its disc rental business, according to a recent New York Times report.

The company has been able to maintain profitability by automating its disc-processing operation using what it calls the “amazing arm” to open envelopes and identify and check discs before putting them back their sleeves, the Times reported. More than 3,000 discs are processed in an hour.

Although the disc-by-mail business is dwindling, Netflix still has 5.3 million subscribers down from a peak of about 20 million five years ago. There’s still huge demand among a loyal base of subscribers, many living in rural areas.

Read the full report here.