Blinkbox has reported a 180 per cent surge in sales via mobile devices from November to December last year, while overall sales jumped 220 per cent year on year.
The movie and TV streaming service, in which Tesco owns a majority (80 per cent) stake, is seeing an increasing number of sales come via a mix of devices including smartphones, tablets and games consoles, which now account for nearly half (45 per cent) of all sales on the site.
Blinkbox also saw a 240 per cent year-on-year rise in return buyers during 26 November and 30 December last year. Sales peaked on Saturday 29 December with sales up 245 per cent year on year.
The company attributes the sales spike to the growth of tablet and game console penetration along with a range of new-release movies and TV shows.
Sky still dominates the subscription movie-on-demand rights window but Blinkbox is a pay-per-view (PPV) service rather than subscription service like Lovefilm or Netflix, therefore it can operate in the more flexible PPV movie rights window and gain more new releases as a result.
The service is available on Microsoft’s Xbox and Sony’s PS3 games consoles along with smart TVs including Samsung, Philips and LG. It has reported a rise in viewing across smart TVs with growth up 130 per cent year on year.
Meanwhile Blinkbox cited comedy Ted as the fastest selling movie title ever on the service while the fastest selling TV series to date is Game of Thrones.
Michael Comish, CEO of Blinkbox, said, “A solid pre-Christmas movies and TV selection and the ever-growing consumer love affair with technology created the perfect storm.
“Tablets and games consoles have proven to be increasingly dominant platforms, with Smart TVs also showing significant signs of traction. We won’t be complacent - great TV and movies aren’t just for Christmas. We go into 2013 laser focussed on bringing the latest great entertainment with the flexibility of no subscription.”
The news comes as the company revealed Papa John’s Pizza as its new brand partner for its Movie Mondays initiative, which kicked off last year.
Movie Mondays was one of the first joint Tesco-Blinkbox activities rolled out following the acquisition in 2011.
Visitors to the Blinkbox site can watch a selection of movies for 99p per week while also receiving a large Papa Johns’ pizza for the same price.