The online DVD movie rental business in India is on the verge of taking off.
There are several online DVD rental services in India, all running their own delivery systems and logistics.
So lets get started with these sites. India's first online DVD movie rental service Clixflix started in 2004, and was followed by several others like MovieMart, Homeview.In, Madhouse, SeventyMM, CineSprite, CatchFlix and LazyGenie, ... (phew !! I know !!) in no particular order.
Lets start with ClixFlix.com -- It covers the whole of Mumbai and has 7000 members. It offers a choice of 6000 Blockbuster movie titles and its monthly charges are Rs 399 for 6 DVDs or Rs 799 for unlimited nos.
Then comes the SeventyMM.com -- this startup has commenced operations in March 2006. It has raised Rs 100MN in seed funding from Draper Fischer and is unarguably, the best positioned amongst the current lot, to scale operations nationally. At present, it covers only Bangalore. It offers 10,000 titles in nine Indian languages (including English).
Even though it started last year March, its getting the highest traffic (data from Alexa.com) among all these other websites. Good marketing sure can do wonders !!
There are other players in this game as well.
CatchFlix.com -- this site started off in May 2006. Instead of a monthly rental, they charge Rs 99 per DVD for 3 days (no deposits required). It has mainly English & Hindi titles to choose from.
HomeView.In - is an online movie rental startup for Delhi and surrounding areas. The membership price is steep- Rs.999 per month Unlimited DVDs (one at a time) (discounted a bit if you sign-up for 3 or 6 months).
MovieMart.In -- The site is slick and professional looking; and in true Indian startup spirit. Their plans start at Rs.149 (with Rs.500 security deposit). The ‘no-late fee, no-due dates’ model is workable too.
Unlike online DVD rental companies in other countries, online DVD Rental Services in India do not use the postal service as a means of delivery or exchange.
But guess what ?? Why would somebody rent a movie when they can watch hundreds of movies online for free ? Yes that's correct.
Among all of these, there are two sites which is still high in traffic ranking. Bollygrounds.com and Rajshri.com. But the winner is Rajshri.com. No rental, no fees. Watch it online for free. Free online movies. And if you want to download it, then the prices are around $5.
They not only have hundreds of movies but old TV shows as well for free. Shaktiman (the first Super Hero of India), Mahabharat (the Real Gem), Malgudi days and many more.
So out of curiosity, I compared all these sites with Rajshri.com for Alexa traffic rank and guess what ? Rajshri.com is way way ahead then these sites. The only reason behind this is ? Why spend money when you can get something for free. Check out the graph below that I created on Alexa.com
I wish good luck to all these sites and hope they do great. You all, enjoy these article and if you would like to rent movie online and have a nice weekend, check out the one site that suits you.
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