AfterDawn: News

Blu-ray movie sales are strong in Europe

According to a couple of analysts, sales of Blu-ray discs in Europe are doing "better than expected", given the worldwide recession.

FutureSource says that in the UK, for the month of November, consumers purchased 462,000 BD movies, a large 165 percent increase from the month before it.



"The Blu-ray disc format offers an unparalleled home entertainment experience, something all those involved with this technology have always known," notes Futuresource Director Jim Bottom. "Once people see the benefits of Blu-ray for themselves, they soon realize the difference it can make. Seeing is believing after all! We fully expect Blu-ray to keep on bucking the current economic trend and continue its rapid growth over the next few months and beyond, stimulated by falling prices and even more bundling deals with large screen TVs."

Bottom also adds that Blu-ray players, including the PS3, have "outsold DVD by 'about five times' over the first three years of DVD's release."

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 22 Dec 2008 20:28

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• 9 comments

• bryston

  I would like to see the sales numbers in January as a comparason

  22.12.2008 21:07 #1

• error5

  Originally posted by bryston: I would like to see the sales numbers in January as a comparasonIn the business and marketing world you don't compare 4th quarter sales and 1st quarter sales. It is well known that around 50 percent of all hardware and software sales of home video products occur in the 4th quarter of the calendar year - October to December.
  
  This is the reason why you compare Q4 of 2007 to Q4 of 2008 OR Q1 of 2008 to Q1 of 2009. In January everyone expects a big drop-off from the busiest buying season of the year. It doesn't make sense to compare Q4 2008 to Q1 2009.
  
  You need to follow seasonal sales trends and compare same quarters year-on-year. This applies not only to BluRay but also to most goods - flat panel HDTV's, digital cameras, and I suspect women's boots as well.

  22.12.2008 21:31 #2

• bryston

  So what you are saying is that the heavily weighted sales of the forth qtr is not indicative of average monthly sales. In essence, the spike seeen in this news report is a spike. When averaged over 12 months, the sales numbers are more normalized and will appear less impressive.
  
  Jo

  22.12.2008 21:47 #3

• error5

  Originally posted by bryston: So what you are saying is that the heavily weighted sales of the forth qtr is not indicative of average monthly sales. In essence, the spike seeen in this news report is a spike. When averaged over 12 months, the sales numbers are more normalized and will appear less impressive.
  
  JoCorrect. Everyone sees a sales spike during Q4.
  
  BluRay and DVD may be a special case though since home video is a content-based product. We may see spikes when highly anticipated titles are released. Case in point - this year we saw sales spikes on both formats when they released Transformers, Iron Man and TDK. It just happened that the Iron Man and TDK releases were in Q4. In general, however, we see an increase in overall baseline sales during Q4.
  
  
  
  
  If you want to compare 12-month figures i.e. BluRay revenue for 2007 vs what he have so far in 2008, here are the numbers:
  (From Toshibot's post in another thread)
  
  Total BluRay revenue in 2007 - $172.8 million
  Year-to-date BluRay sales revenue thru 12/14/2008 - $540 million
  
  That a >300 percent increase in revenue.
  

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  22.12.2008 22:04 #4

• Toshibot

  What's amazing is the fact that these sales spikes are happening in the middle of a recession.

  22.12.2008 23:23 #5

• juankerr

  Originally posted by bryston: I would like to see the sales numbers in January as a comparasonOne thing that could happen in January is what they call the "Christmas Tree Effect."
  
  ad reported strong sales of BluRay players during Q4 especially during Black Friday weekend.
  
  http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/16262.cfm
  
  If a good number of these players were given as gifts then we could have a substantial increase in the BluRay buying population, not to mention new PS3 owners. This could translate to increased sales during the first few weeks/months of next year.

  23.12.2008 08:49 #6

• Globe08

  Originally posted by Toshibot: What's amazing is the fact that these sales spikes are happening in the middle of a recession.Suprising about the sales spike on blu-ray ofr just in general?

  23.12.2008 16:44 #7

• avoidz

  Uh, it is Xmas, so the increase in sales is normal for this time of year.

  23.12.2008 19:23 #8

• Interestx

  165% more of almost nothing is still almost nothing and I'm afraid I don't see anything too spectaculr about the 462,000 Blu-ray discs sold either.
  
  Obviously the Iron Man spike - a movie almost as tailored to the PS3 gang as Batman TDK.
  
  Considering how many PS3s there are supposed to be in circulation I don't call those numbers especially amazing.

  24.12.2008 10:22 #9