Business history: Redbox timeline

 

Photo by Retiring Guy

2002.  Concept originated by McDonald’s as a way to increase traffic to their locations.

2004.  Denver serves as its first tests market.  The concept is well-received.

2005.  McDonald's expands the testing of the concept at 800 locations in 5 additional markets: Baltimore, Houston, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Salt Lake City and St. Louis. 

2005 (November).  Coinstar, Inc. announces agreement with McDonald’s Ventures LLC to invest in Redbox with a 47.3 percent share of the company.  Redbox is now a separate company from McDonald’s.  

2006 (September).  Customers can make online reservations on DVDs.

2007 (September).  Customers can rent DVDs at one location and return them at any Redbox location nationwide.

2007 (October).  Return time extended from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.

2008 (July).  Enchanced kiosk interfaces introduced a search feature and genre categorization.

2009.  Coinstar purchases the remaining stake of Redbox from McDonald’s and other minority holders.

2010 (fall).  Availablity of Blu-ray movies.

2014.  Redbox has one-half of the physical media rental market.

2015.  Due to a shift from physical media to streaming, Redbox expereinces a decline in the number of items rented, from 717,130,000 to 587,550,000.

2017.  40,000 kiosks located nationwide.

2019:  Stops renting video games but continued to sell used copies. 

2020: Launches Free Live TV, a free ad-supported streaming television service.

2021:  Goes public on the Nasdaq under the ticker RDBX. 

2022: Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment announced its intention to acquire Redbox for $375 million. 

2024: Announces that it is officially shutting down after 22 years.

SOURCES:  History of Redbox, Zippia, Wikipedia