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Blu-ray and digital distribution not enough to hedge DVD's 2010 decline
Despite 2009 being the best box office year of all time hitting a record $10 billion, the Digital Entertainment Group has announced that the home media market continues to lose ground when compared to last year. The first six months of 2010 still managed to earn $8.8 billion for Hollywood, which is still a lot, but it is down 3.3 percent when compared to the first half of 2009. This is despite the fact that Blu-ray revenues were up 83 percent over the same period hitting a new record of $982 million for both sales and rentals. And digital distribution was also up to new heights gaining 23 percent and hitting the new record of $1.1 billion (which includes sales and VOD). Sales were actually almost flat in the second quarter, but it would've taken a lot to make up for the lost ground in the first quarter. This is obviously a white whine as not many industries would complain about only earning over a billion dollars a month and actually transactions were up 2.3 percent, which does indicate there might be a trend towards renting vs buying during hard economic times. The 30 day value rental window imposed by Warner and others might help explain why the second quarter fared better than the first, but one quarter alone isn't enough to call the practice a success. Full release with many more details after the jump.
Blu-ray sales were up 67 percent in 2009
No matter what the benchmark, when you increase the number of households with a Blu-ray player up 76 percent, to 17 million, that's a good year. So what if it is was one of the worst economic times in US history, and that overall home media sales were down 13.7 percent -- not even Blu-ray could fend off that big of a loss in DVD buying -- that is the type of growth that any new technology would strive for in its 3rd full year. We'd just love to hear anyone try and say Blu-ray was fighting for survival with $1.5 billion in revenue in one year, especially when Adams Research estimates the digital download market was only worth $360 million during the same time. Now we're not ones to say that physical discs will ever be what they used to be -- that captive audience is gone after all -- but as fans of the format, we can't help but feel like our ability to enjoy the best quality at home isn't in danger. Especially when during the five week holiday shopping season, Blu-ray player sales were up 44 percent while the overall consumer spending was down by 1 percent.
Digital Entertainment Group reports disc revenue's down, transactions up
The latest DEG numbers reporting the 3.2 percent decrease in disc revenues this year over last, weren't really that interesting to us. Sure some might argue that is actually good considering overall consumer spending, but what is really interesting is that the number of transactions (sales and rentals) are up 6.6 percent. This should probably be interpreted as rentals are up while sales are down, but the bottom line is that more people then ever are still watching movies on round discs. All of this added together with the latest DRM technologies coming, makes us wonder what the home media landscape will look like in a few years. One thing is for sure, it seems Blu-ray has given packaged media the life extension that the studios had hoped for.
Blu-ray celebrates 91 percent sales increase for first half of 2009
Remember back in May when Blu-ray sales were reportedly up 72 percent for 2009? Turns out the high definition disc business is doing even better than that. The Digital Entertainment Group is reporting a 91 percent sales increase year-on-year, totaling $407 million, for the first six months of this year -- an impressive feat, especially in this recession climate. Blu-ray rentals, too, saw a 61 percent increase, and on the less tangible side of things, digital distribution rose 21 percent. Despite all this, the report noted that overall consumer spending on prerecorded entertainment dropped 3.1 percent, and net profit down 2.2 percent... come on UMD, pick up the slack.
Blu-ray moved 63.2 million units in 2008
The Digital Entertainment Group released a few numbers from 2008 that caught our attention. The most notable is that while the shipment of DVD units -- whatever that means -- was down almost 15 percent in 2008 to 1.4 Billion, Blu-ray shipments were up 250% to 63.2 million. Overall this still only works out to about 4.5 percent market share for Blu-ray in 2008, but this is still moving in the correct direction for HD fans. This works out to about 6.3 units sold per player since the DEG also says there are now 10 million Blu-ray players (including PS3s) out there with 3 million of them being sold in the 4th quarter.
