Blu-ray successful amidst economic downturn
Some analysts have been quick to predict that the sales of Blu-ray movies would suffer due to the economic downturn. However, it seems like they were all wrong. Last month, Blu-ray movie sales have reached an all time high and it looks like things are just heating up.
According to Hollywood in Hi-Def, Home Media Research, has released its periodic results regarding the health of the consumer media market in the U.S. The latest numbers show that consumers purchased 2.3 million Blu-ray movies during the month of October. Not only did Blu-ray movie sales shatter the numbers for same time last year, but it also achieved the highest sales for any given month.
According to the results, October is the first month Blu-ray movie sales have surpassed the 2 million barrier. This has been attributed to the dramatic increase in the number of players purchased recently. Apparently, only 470,000 Blu-ray movies were sold in October 2007.
Another interesting bit of news is that there have been 20 million Blu-ray movies sold to day and 14 million (70 percent) were sold this year. With the current success of Blu-ray movie sales, studios have confidently announced last month that 1,000 new Blu-ray titles have been planned release.
Despite high sales in the U.S. it actually pales in comparison to Europe and Japan. Currently, in Japan Blu-ray sales attribute to approximately 50 percent of all optical media sold, which is significant.
Historically, if a technology becomes adopted mainstream in Japan, it has been a good indicator of how well it will fare throughout the rest of the world. HD TV and cell phones are other good examples of that trend. HD TV sales have also been healthy, which has been linked to how well hi-definition formats sell. All in all, it looks like Blu-ray will soar high during the holiday season.
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November 30th, 2008
2.3 million discs sold, unfortunately around 1/3rd to 1/2 of that number were sales of “Iron Man”.
There will be similar sales in December for “The Dark Knight”, but high sales of two individual titles doesn’t bode well for the overall success of the format.
November 30th, 2008
2.3 million in one month (a spike all about Iron Man encouraging PS3 owners to try it out).
We’ll also see two more spikes (Batman TDK & Wanted) this year.
3 better selling movies.
It’s not much to be bragging about.
Then there’s the 20 million sold to date number.
Presumably this is USA only.
Well, DVD sells 1.7+ billion units p.a.
So, 20 million is just over 1%.
Again, it’s nothing to be getting very excited about – in fact considering how many PS3s there are in circulation and how they were supposed to bring big sales numbers it’s downright pathetic, in fact.
No wonder Warner are now – and note this is very publicly – saying it’s all under review & reconsideration.
On the 20th Nov (so, a point at which they know all about Iron Man sales & batman/Wanted pre-orders) they are reported in the NYT as saying -
“We think this is a do-or-die time for Blu-ray,” said Ron Sanders, president of Warner Home Video. “We must get it established as a favorite holiday item.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/business/21dvd.html?_r=2&hp
If all this stuff’s meant to show Blu-ray doing well then someone needs a long vacation at the funny farm.
We’ve yet to see the coming recession bite hard (and by most estimates for at least all of next year).
US retail sales, confidence and unemployment numbers are at various lows and highs (the bad way around).
Personally I give Blu-ray 6mths to start showing the major studios backing away leaving the Sony clique selling ever more idiotic shallow sh!te to the PS3 demographic.
December 18th, 2008
Blu-ray sales hasn’t attributed 50% of all optical media sales in Japan, it’s Blu-ray recorders outsold DVD recorders for the first time in Japan.
I am new to this site. Is Mike a Blu-ray fanboy? Why is he spitting lies around?