HD DVD Players Roll Up Sales
By Doug Olenick -- TWICE, 6/11/2007
Los Angeles — Backers of the HD DVD format reported Monday that recent pricing promotions on Toshiba’s three HD DVD players and continued releases of HD DVD titles have pushed HD DVD sales “significantly ahead in the dedicated consumer electronics player market with 60 percent of all dedicated high-definition set-top players sold.” The feat was reported by the
North American HD DVD Promotional Group Monday, three weeks into the spring retail and marketing campaigns, which are offering an entry price on an HD DVD player at $299. At the same time, high-definition movie sales for HD DVD reached an all-time high for the month of May, exceeding
the last week of May alone, the HD DVD Promotional Group said. Overall high-definition sales hit a record last week at $5.2 million in actual consumer spending, which was 31 percent higher than the previous record for the two formats. The group said “sales of dedicated consumer electronics players are a critical indicator in the adoption of the high definition formats, given the high attach rates to these players.” With the successive price drops by Toshiba, weekly player sales doubled in April when the price dropped from $499 to $399, doubled again during the first week of the latest promotion in late May, and increased again last week, according to the promotional group. “Toshiba’s latest promotional efforts are clearly resonating with consumers and showing that price is king when it comes to hardware,” stated Craig Kornblau, North American HD DVD Promotional Group chairman. “Behind the increase in sales for hardware and movies, you’re seeing fundamentally lower manufacturing costs and ease of authoring for HD DVD. That’s the type of model that can scale.” Consumers have purchased 150,000 dedicated HD DVD consumer electronics players, which are holding a 4-to-1 movie attach rate over competing formats, according to the group. The Toshiba HD-A2 model has also reached the top-seller mark among all DVD players on Amazon.com. As of Monday morning, all three Toshiba HD DVD players were tracking in the top three DVD player/recorder models on Amazon’s site.
