Retail execs say Blu-ray surpassing DVD player demand
By Danny Mendez
Demand for (this century’s) Blu-ray players is surpassing demand for (last century’s) DVD players, say some retail executives, and sales should pass up DVD sometime by August. And HD-DVD’s death is slowing mysteriously slowing the process from the grave…
When Toshiba abandoned HD-DVD in February, retailers were unprepared for the sudden increase in demand for Blu-ray. They had few models to display and hardly any stock to offer, but retail execs from Crutchfield, Ultimate Electronics, and Bjorn’s agree things are turning around, says TV Predictions.
“People have been waiting weeks for Sony players, but it should get better later in the summer,” said Rick Souder, executive VP of merchandise at Crutchfield. It seems the demand is there, but the products aren’t.
This should change very soon since Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, and others plan to release new players, cheaper players, and better players soon. “There should be a healthy supply [of Blu-ray players] by August and [manufacturers] should be caught up in production,” said Mat Duda, merchandising director at Ultimate Electronics.
Even though Blu-ray player demand is high at some stores, others aren’t reporting such success. The only Blu-ray player on the Amazon DVD/Blu-ray player sales top-ten list is… actually, it’s not there. There isn’t one, the player selling best at Amazon is sitting at number eleven, the Samsung BD-P1400 for about $335.
Though these are just the opinions of some hopeful corporate execs, we think they’re probably right. Well, that is unless digital downloads kill Blu-ray.
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