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MFDigital CD DVD Information Library
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
 
Bluray Consumer Video Spending on the Increase
Despite a promising March, in which sell through spending was up 4% and overall consumer spending on home entertainment rose 2%, the lingering effects of the recession continued to make consumers more watchful of their expenditures in the first quarter of this year.

Total consumer spending on Blu-ray Disc and DVD purchases and rentals, as well as digital delivery, is estimated at $4.8 billion, down 8% from the first quarter of 2009, according to numbers released April 15 from DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group. Conspicuously absent from the latest DEG report is transaction data. Last year, consumer spending was down 5%, but transactions were up 2.8%.

The bright spot for home entertainment in the first quarter of 2010: a sharp rise in consumer spending on Blu-ray Disc, with sellthrough up 74% and rental up 36%, according to the DEG, which compiles its numbers each quarter with input from all the major studios. The software gains were accompanied by a 125% growth in Blu-ray Disc hardware sales in the quarter, the DEG said. Digital delivery, too, rose 27% in the first quarter of 2010 from the year-ago quarter, growing to $617 million.

“We are still facing a challenging environment but are very pleased to see positive indicators of stabilization in our overall business,” said Warner Home Video president Ron Sanders, also president of the DEG. “We are encouraged to see consumers continue to realize the tremendous value of Blu-ray and growing more comfortable with digital delivery.”

The rental business, which last year remained surprisingly stable, took a significant hit in the first quarter of this year, largely because of the rash of store closures from troubled brick-and-mortar chains Blockbuster and Movie Gallery. Citing the Rentrak Corp.’s Home Video Essentials, the DEG said rental spending fell 14% in the three months ending March 31 from the first quarter of 2009.

Overall sellthrough spending fell 11% in the quarter. The DEG didn’t break out DVD sellthrough, but according to Home Media Magazine market research, consumer spending on DVD purchases was down 16% in January and February from the same months last year, due largely to the boost in DVD sales that occurred in early 2009 because of the Circuit City liquidation, which flooded the market with cheap discs. March was rebound month, with gains in both sellthrough and overall consumer spending, a remarkable 124% rise in Blu-ray Disc sales and a 35% uptick in digital delivery transactions. Credit, at least in part, goes to the Easter holiday.

Recent moves by three of the six major studios to impose a month-long window on new releases coming to the rental market are expected to boost DVD sales, with a minimal impact on the rental business. Indeed, some observers believe the rental window, which applies only to Netflix and Redbox, will grow the business. Consumers who want new releases as soon as they come out will have to shell out more money to buy them, while fans of renting movies will simply rent something else instead of foregoing the experience altogether.

The health of the Blu-ray Disc market is underscored by the fact that during the quarter, more than 34 million discs were shipped to retail, 72% more than during the first quarter of 2009, according to figures compiled by Swicker & Associates on behalf of the DEG. More than 18 million U.S. homes now have some sort of Blu-ray Disc playback device, either a set-top machine or a PlayStation 3 console. Meanwhile, Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) data shows that consumers bought 4.7 million HDTVs in the quarter, bringing the total number of sets sold to consumers to 75 million. About 50 million U.S. households have at least one set, and 34% of all HDTV owners have two or more sets.


Source: Home Media Magazine

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- posted by MF Digital Marketing @ 4:59 PM
Monday, October 26, 2009
 
Blu-ray Disc Software Sales Up 83 Percent
Blu-ray Disc software sales continue to show a growth with overall sales up 83 percent for the year.

The Digital Entertainment Group released third quarter U.S. sales figures for the home entertainment industry today. Consumer spending for the third quarter of 2009 in the home entertainment window for pre-recorded entertainment, which includes DVD, Blu-ray Disc and digital distribution, was off slightly at $4 billion, down by 3.2 percent compared to the same period last year. Blu-ray Disc software sales continue to show dramatic growth with overall sales up 83 percent for the year and playback devices in 11.7 million U.S. households. The DEG also announced that consumer transactions for all home entertainment products were up 6.6 percent for the third quarter compared to the same period last year.

Blu-ray Disc software sales continue to show dramatic growth with overall sales up 83 percent for the year and playback devices in 11.7 million U.S. households. The DEG also announced that consumer transactions for all home entertainment products were up 6.6 percent for the third quarter compared to the same period last year.

Overall, the home entertainment window continues to show ongoing stability given the current economic environment. Although consumer spending on sell-through packaged media was down 13.9 percent in the third quarter, Blu-ray was up 66.3 percent to $161 million compared to the same period last year (up 83 percent year-to-date to $568 million). Digital distribution (including both video-on-demand and electronic sell-through) was up 18 percent for the quarter to $420 million (up 20 percent year-to-date to $1.4 billion). Furthermore, according to Rentrak Corporation?s Home Video Essentials, rental spending was up 9.9 percent for the quarter, with Blu-ray rental spending up 44.5 percent.

"We are pleased to see an uptick in the number of consumer transactions indicating a continuing strong demand for home entertainment product," said Ron Sanders, President, DEG and President, Warner Home Video. "We are also encouraged by the dramatic growth of Blu-ray and the increases in digital distribution and rental in the third quarter." Blu-ray is accounting for 12 percent of all theatrical new release sales in the third quarter. The year's best selling Blu-ray Disc title "X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment) and Watchmen" (Warner Home Video) have each approached or surpassed 30 percent of consumer spending on Blu-ray Disc. According to figures compiled by Swicker and Associates on behalf of the DEG, more than 17 million Blu-ray Discs shipped to retail in the third quarter of the year, an increase of 35 percent over the same period last year.

According to figures compiled by the DEG based on data from CEA, retailers and manufacturers, Blu-ray Disc playback devices sold 3.3 million units through the first three quarters of 2009, an increase of 13 percent over same period last year. Through the first three quarters of 2009, Blu-ray Disc set-top player sales grew 112 percent over same period last year. Blu-ray playback device households are nearly 11.7 million and include PlayStation 3 consoles, along with a variety of set-top players that are available as either stand along models or combined with home theater systems. Approximately 80 percent of Blu-ray devices are BD-Live capable.

According to figures compiled by the DEG based on data from CEA, retailers and manufacturers, approximately four million HDTVs were sold to consumers in the third quarter of 2009 and nearly 12 million sold in the first three quarters of the year. Household penetration of HDTVs in the U.S. is nearly 45 million, representing almost 40 percent of all U.S. households. Approximately 29 percent of all HDTV owners have more than one set.


Source: CDRinfo

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- posted by MF Digital Marketing @ 12:51 PM
Monday, July 27, 2009
 
Blu-ray Defies Recession to Lead the Home Entertainment Market
New figures on the home entertainment market released by the British Video Association using data from the Official Charts Company reveal that Blu-ray Disc sales continue to rise despite the recession biting the sector as a whole in the first half of the year.vMore than 3.1 million Blu-ray Discs have sold in 2009 to date, a rise of 231 per cent on the same period last year.

Hannah Conduct, Marketing Manager at the British Video Association says:"The continuing success of Blu-ray is testament to the growth of consumer confidence in the high definition format. There are now almost 1500 Blu-ray releases in the market covering a breadth of titles. Seeing is believing with Blu-ray and the figures show that once consumers have experienced the format, they continue to spend their money on the product."

Hannah Conduct adds, "Older releases such as Trainspotting (4DVD), Bladerunner (Warner Home Video) and The Day the Earth Stood Still (20th Century Fox Home Entertainment), have all experienced sales success on this exciting format, years after their initial DVD release. Many more Blu-ray titles are anticipated in the latter part of this year so consumers will have plenty of opportunities to add to their home entertainment collections."

With consumers upgrading to Blu-ray this has led to a fall in the numbers of DVD purchased. Sales are down 9.5 per cent year-on-year bringing the total number of discs sold in 2009 to 100 million.

The outlook for the second half of the year is more promising. The BVA's 2009 Yearbook shows that 30% of all sales take place in the last two months of the year and some of this year's big pre-Christmas releases including Bruno (Universal Pictures), Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince (Warner Home Video), Ice Age 3 (20th Century Fox Home Entertainment), Terminator: Salvation (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment), Tinker Bell (Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment) and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Paramount Home Entertainment) are expected to perform extremely well on DVD and Blu-ray.

Lavinia Carey, Director General of the British Video Association, says: "The home entertainment industry has weathered the recession extremely well during the last year but, sadly, with the loss of around 900 high street stores at the start of the year, following the demise of Woolworths and Zavvi, the sales generated from impulse purchases have been hit. This changing retail landscape has had a huge impact on our half year result. We hope as the year progresses that new retailers will fill the gap by stocking home entertainment products to give consumers a wider choice."

The BVA also points to industry research conducted at the end of last year by TNS, indicating that 72% of consumers felt that they would have significantly less disposable income in 2009, with 31% strongly agreeing. Most respondents (98%) said they would be actively seeking out promotions and offers.

Lavinia Carey adds, "People must also be increasingly tempted to search out methods of downloading illicit content for free on the Internet. With an increasing number of new internet services coming on stream, the industry is aiming to encourage greater consumer up-take of legitimate downloads." The latest forecasts from Screen Digest suggest that legitimate online video will grow in significance, comparative to growth in physical discs, as a distribution channel and revenue source between now and 2012.


Source: CDRinfo

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- posted by MF Digital Marketing @ 11:24 AM