High-def player sales still just 10% of standard DVD

DisplaySearch: Discounting gave HD DVD two-thirds of next-gen holiday sales

By Susanne Ault -- Video Business, 12/7/2007

DEC. 7 | High-def hardware achieved huge Black Friday gains, but still lags behind the sales pace of standard-definition DVD players.

HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc stand-alone players sold 57,000 units during the week ended Nov. 24, the day marking the official kick-off to the holiday season. That contrasts to the 600,000 units sold of standard-def DVD players, according to market analyst DisplaySearch.

DisplaySearch released these figures during a Black Friday Webinar on Friday.

HD DVD commanded the lion’s share of unit sales for stand-alone high-def disc players, scoring a 62% unit share; Blu-ray held 37%. Due to higher price points, Blu-ray hardware cornered 52% of the revenue; HD DVD, 47%.

Paul Erickson, director of DVD and HD DVD market research at DisplaySearch, said that HD DVD’s retail pricing, which on average was 50% cheaper than Blu-ray stand-alones, spurred its Black Friday sales for the format. The most popular high-def models were Toshiba’s HD-A3, which many retailers sold for $199, and the Sony and Samsung Blu-ray players and PS3 model that sold for $399.

Each format significantly hiked its sales from week directly preceding the Black Friday frame. HD DVD unit sales jumped 454%; Blu-ray, up 189%. In revenue, HD DVD was up 272%; Blu-ray, up 176%.

Due to strong promotion around its new $399 40GB model, PlayStation 3 sold between 160,000 and 170,000 units, DisplaySearch estimates.

HD DVD might have sold more units during the Black Friday period, but the Blu-ray Disc Assn. nevertheless said it hit a new milestone—2.7 million players sold since launch—over the period. The figure encompasses both Blu-ray-capable gaming devices and Blu-ray set-top players, but the Blu-rayA declined to break down sales.

The HD DVD camp earlier said its total sales of set-top players and gaming devices reached 750,000 units following widespread holiday retail sales, notably including $99-priced players at Wal-Mart and Best Buy.

The BDA last week also trumpeted its continuing lead in Blu-ray software sales, which in the weeks leading up to Black Friday had been outpacing HD DVD titles by a two-to-one ratio. During the Black Friday period, Blu-ray titles made up 72.6% of all high-def purchases, with HD DVD totaling 27.4%, according to Nielsen/VideoScan figures cited by BDA.

According to the Blu-ray camp, total Blu-ray disc sales in the U.S. since launch topped 4 million units in November, about the same time HD DVD software sales passed just 2.5 million units.

DisplaySearch predicts Black Friday trends will continue through the rest of the year. By the end of 2007, 678,000 HD DVD stand-alones will have shipped into retail since launch, it said. Blu-ray players will have shipped 461,000 units. PS3s will stand at 2.5 million units, and Xbox 360 HD DVD drive at 270,000 units.

Keeping with previous predictions, DisplaySearch estimates that 4.76 million high-def stand-alones will have shipped to retail by year-end 2008.