For those of you keeping your finger on the pulse of the home entertainment business, a couple good news items about disc-based media and Blu-ray in particular have published recently in Home Media Magazine.
The first I want to share is Home Media Magazine‘s “Total Disc Sales Revenue” chart, a weekly tracking of both DVD and Blu-ray sales in total and separately. For those who have been watching the Blu-ray market since 2009, this chart has always been a useful indicator of the disc-based home entertainment marketplace. Frequent readers of this space will be familiar with this infographic — it’s one of my favorite resources.
I’ve included this week’s chart here, for convenience sake, though it can be found on the HMM homepage. Note how BOTH the DVD and Blu-ray sales numbers are UP compared to a year ago, a healthy 20.25%. And Blu-ray continues to do well and grow in market share, with 26% of total sales.
The other article worth noting provides another view on the same good news. NEWS ANALYSIS: Retailers See ‘Blu’ Bottom Line delivers the retailer’s POV of the steady increase in Blu-ray sales.
Sales of Blu-ray Disc movies and catalog DVDs have shown significant resilience in 2012 — despite operating in a market inundated with less expensive kiosk rentals and subscription video-on-demand, according to separate 10Q filings released this week by Hastings Entertainment and Trans World Entertainment Corp…
Meanwhile, Hastings Entertainment…saw sales of movie discs increase 0.4% in its most recent fiscal period (ended July 31) compared with a decline of 11.4% last year. For the first half of its fiscal year, disc sales fell 2.2%, which represented a 6.6% improvement from the same period last year.
Indeed, the chain saw a 14.1% drop in disc rentals in the first half of the year, primarily due to fewer rentals of DVDs and video games — partially offset by an increase in Blu-ray rentals.
While the article does note that that the sales increase could be due to the quality of the releases in the first part of the year, these numbers do indicate the consumers are still interested in viewing and owning discs, not just downloading or streaming. Indeed, they’re also interested in buying them through brick n’ mortar retail outlets outside the holiday season. Presumably, these are consumers who are buying for themselves, continuing to expand their collection and keep it current, rather than as gifts for somebody else.
If anyone is still unconvinced of the viability and promising long term prospects of Blu-ray, please write me and tell me why.