Dunstable, England — In the light of Toshiba’s announcement that it will join the Blu-ray Disc Association, Futuresource Consulting has released its analysis of the BD market in Europe, showing player sales, excluding PS3, running at close to 300 percent over the equivalent period last year
According to Futuresource director Jim Bottoms, BD players will approach the “impulse purchase level” very soon, and at these levels people will be increasingly tempted to replace DVD players with the new format. Bottoms expects retail prices to reach £80/100 Euros or lower by the Christmas selling season. He said that although paid-for movie downloads are also impacting the marketplace, mainstream adoption of this technology will be a much more gradual process, giving BD the competitive edge.
“Just 12 percent of US consumer expenditure on home video will originate from online in 2012, with a slightly lower proportion in Europe,” Bottoms said.
BD disc sales continue to expand into all major markets and genres, according to Futuresource’s research. In particular, the action-adventure genre dominates, appealing strongly to the young male technology adopter, which also closely matches the PS3 owner profile. For some high-profile titles, close to 25 percent of all disc sales have been on BD.
With more than 1,100 BD titles to choose from, combined with growing retail support and increased promotional activity, the rise of Blu-ray will help to offset declining sales of standard DVD product. By 2012, around 50 percent of US and 35 percent of Western European video disc retail sale volumes will be Blu-ray, according to Futuresource.
“Focusing on the UK, this year we expect both BD player and BD disc sales to more than triple — and this is certainly being borne out by our quarterly player and disc tracking,” Bottoms said. “On this basis, UK disc sales could hit 12 million given the strong release schedule for Q4.”
