NCR hires Coinstar’s Camara for Blockbuster kiosk effort

Executive worked for Redbox parent for a decade

By Danny King -- Video Business, 6/1/2009

JUNE 1 | ATM-making giant NCR has tapped Alex Camara, a former executive with Redbox parent Coinstar, to head its movie-rental kiosk-development efforts with Blockbuster.

Camara, who was most recently general manager of Coinstar’s coin and entertainment unit, will be VP and general manager of NCR’s entertainment solutions division, NCR said in a statement today. Camara had been with Coinstar for 10 years.

Camara will oversee a partnership formed last year between NCR and Blockbuster to build Blockbuster Express kiosks and close the gap with kiosk leader Redbox in the rapidly-growing self-service DVD market. U.S. rental revenue from kiosks is expected to more than double between 2008 and 2011 to $1 billion, while traditional in-store sales are expected to fall during the same period, Adams Media Research said in March.

“Alex is the ideal person to drive NCR’s entertainment business and fulfill our goal of becoming the worldwide leader in entertainment self-service solutions,” John Bruno, executive VP of NCR’s industry solutions group, said in the statement.

In April, NCR agreed to acquire the majority stake in movie-rental kiosk operator TNR Holdings, which will speed up its kiosk-making partnership with Blockbuster, the largest U.S. movie-rental chain. Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes has estimated that the partnership will produce 3,000 kiosks by the end of the year and 10,000 by the end of 2010.

Earlier this year, Coinstar bought the 49% of Redbox that it didn’t already own for about $175 million in cash and stock. Last month, Coinstar said Redbox’s first-quarter sales more than doubled from a year earlier, and it was on track to almost double its machine count to as many as 22,000 this year.