Amazon will shut down its DVD and Blu-ray rental service Lovefilm in Germany on October 31, 2017.
“We thank all customers who have used the Lovefilm DVD rental service,” Amazon said in a statement. “In the past years, a growing number of customers have made use of streaming services while the demand for renting DVD and Blu-ray discs has declined at the same time. We will therefore close down the Lovefilm DVD rental service on October 31, 2017.”
The around 50 employees affected will be offered other job positions at Amazon.
Lovefilm was founded in the UK in 2002 and launched its German service in 2006. The company was acquired by Amazon in 2011.
The company offered a download service alongside postal delivery but this ceased on 23 February 2009. Lovefilm also started a ‘watch online’ service which offered over 4,700 films available to watch as part of a subscription.
In February 2014, Amazon announced that it would fold Lovefilm’s streaming service into its Instant Video service on 26 February 2014.
Lovefilm’s DVD rental service continued to be available in both the United Kingdom and Germany under the Lovefilm brand from Amazon’s local websites. Now Lovefilm Germany is closing down shop.
[UPDATE, AUGUST 14, 2017 13.43] Amazon has confirmed to Broadband TV News that the UK service of Lovefilm will also be shut down on October 31, 2017. See our separate story on the UK closure.
