Netflix still rents out DVDs, and it just shipped the 5 billionth one!

That online streaming giant Netflix started off as a DVD distribution company in the US 21 years ago may be known to many. But, in this day and age, the fact that the company still continues to distribute these discs is intriguing. Not just that, Netflix just finished shipping their five billionth DVD, which happened to be that of the movie Rocketman. They ship DVDs only in the US.

The news was confirmed on Monday by DVD Netflix, the subsidiary that caters to the company's disc distributions currently. “5,000,000,000 shipments. F I V E B I L L I O N . The most heartfelt thank you to our incredible members that have been with us for the past 21 years of DVD Netflix. Five billion discs delivered is a huge milestone and we owe it all to our amazing members and team members (sic).,” DVD Netflix tweeted.

Now that they are making it big in the content streaming space, it is natural for one to think they might have phased out the DVD-by-mail service. But, it turns out, the service is still active and they are making profits. According to a report in the Variety, In Q2 of 2019, physical disc shipments contributed close to $46 million in profits to the company’s bottom line. The numbers have declined, yes, but the sizeable profit has ensured the company keeps this subsidiary running; till when we can't be sure. In fact, the service still has 2.7 million subscribers in the US as per numbers of the past quarter. The customer can log on to the company's website and subscribe to a plan that suits them.

In its heydays, Netflix operated 50 DVD shipment centres in the US; now it is down to just 17.

According to reports, in the second quarter of 2019, Netflix's streaming platform had over 151 million paying subscribers worldwide as well as over 6.56 million free trial customers. Of these subscribers, 60.1 million were from the United States.