HD DVD sales outpacing Blu-ray in the US?
By John Pospisil
The propaganda wars between the HD DVD and Blu-ray camps continue with the North American HD DVD Promotional Group announcing that overall HD DVD hardware sales were up 37% from Q1 to Q2 2007, and that there are now more than 180,000 dedicated HD DVD CE players in the US market.
The data is based on NPD reports, Nielsen Netratings reports and point of sale data from the studios.
The Promotional Group attributes this sales growth to standalone HD DVD players being available for $299.
“The numbers are clear — HD DVD is steadily gaining momentum and market share,” said Ken Graffeo, executive vice president of HD strategic marketing for Universal Studios Home Entertainment, and co-president of the HD DVD Promotional Group.
“With HD DVD CE players now at MSRP prices starting at $299 and with strong marketing campaigns around new HD DVDtitles with web-enabled interactive features, we’re continuing to raise thebar for the consumer experience
The Promotional Group says that during the same time-frame, overall Blu-ray hardware sales saw a 27 percent decline from Q1 to Q2.
Of course, what the North American HD DVD Promotional Group is not saying is that there are still far more Blu-ray players in the US if you count the PlayStation 3 (PS3). The Promotional Group’s rival, the Digital Entertainment Group, recently estimated that there were 1.5 million Blu-ray players in the US (93% of which were PS3s) compared to around 300,000 HD DVD players (evenly split between stand alone players and Xbox 360 HD DVD players).
Having said that, PaulErickson, a market analyst with IMS Research, believes that the low the price of stand alone HD DVD players will be a significant factor in which high-definition format comes out in front:
“Consumers in the US and Europe continue to show the greatest sensitivity to price, rather than content or branding, in their purchase decision for standalone high-definition players,” he said.
“With the total number of titles available for each format differing byonly 20-30 titles at this time, the real-world gap in content between thetwo formats is in actuality not as large as many would perceive.”
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Stumble It!
July 18th, 2007
HD DVD is doing some major spinning…. Statistics shows that Blu Ray is taking 70% of all hi def movies sales.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/04/23/blu-ray-disc-one-million-served/
July 25th, 2007
“HD DVD is doing some major spinning…. Statistics shows that Blu Ray is taking 70% of all hi def movies sales.”
They’ve never given legit stats. Can you blame them? Every single raw statistic shows them losing to bluray (Sales, hardware, discs sold, gross, net, rental, media, etc.)