Blu-ray's Lead Narrows
By Greg Tarr -- TWICE, 2/8/2008
New York – Despite aggressive price promotions on HD DVD players from Toshiba, sales of Blu-ray Disc players continued to outsell HD DVD units by a wide margin through the week ending January 26, according to leaked NPD Group reports, but the gap has narrowed significantly from reports issued two weeks earlier.
Dedicated Blu-ray Disc player sales, which omit video game consoles, represented 65 percent of unit volume share during the period and 69 percent of retail sales dollars, according to the leaked data. HD DVD players accounted for 28 percent of hardware unit sales and 14 percent of overall HD disc retail dollars. The remainder can be attributed to combo player sales share at 6 percent unit sales and 17 percent dollar share.
NPD numbers reflect retail point of sales data gathered from its panel of reporting dealers.
Due to policies against publicly releasing its weekly sales data, a spokesperson for The NPD Group would not confirm the numbers sent to TWICE.
However, Ross Rubin, NPD Group industry analysis director, said that in general, “It has only been a couple of weeks since the Warner Bros. announcement [of exclusive support for Blu-ray], as well as Toshiba’s price promotions, Microsoft’s lowering the price on its HD DVD Xbox peripheral and the [Toshiba] HD DVD Super Bowl ad. So, the story continues to evolve. The two formats ended 2007 essentially in a dead heat. Until one camp decides to give up its format we are going to continue to see confusion at retail.”
Although the recent numbers show Blu-ray Disc with a sizeable market share lead over HD DVD, they also showed a significant reduction from the much-publicized week ending January 12. At that time, NPD’s reports showed Blu-ray Disc taking 90 percent of both unit sales and dollar volume in the HD Disc player field.
Due to rampant reports using the numbers to declare HD DVD’s demise, NPD broke from its policy to confirm the leaked percentage numbers at that time, and to add that they didn’t necessarily indicate a trend resulting from Warner Bros.’ HD DVD defection.
Following the January 12 numbers confirmation, Stephen Baker, NPD Group industry analysis VP, said those results could have been skewed by major promotions being run by several Blu-ray Disc supporting companies, including bundled deals giving a free Blu-ray Disc player away with the purchase of like-branded HDTVs.
Jodi Sally, Toshiba Digital A/V Group marketing VP, said that if the numbers in the leaked January 26 report are accurate: “I feel it’s important to point out that there were several promotions being run by Blu-ray manufacturers that offered free players with the purchase of select HDTVs. These retail promos mainly highlighted HDTV ads around the Super Bowl.
“Although a player is given away free, it is still scanned at the retail register at the full retail price, similar in the way a ‘buy one, get one free’ offer on movies, is scanned as sales on both of the titles.”
Sally also pointed out that not all retailers report sales figures to NPD, including some key regional accounts and e-tailers, which could affect the count.
“Since Amazon.com is a public site, I can point out that Toshiba’s HD DVD players consistently rank as the top sellers of all DVD players on their site.” Sally said.
According to the leaked data, leading brands of dedcated high-definition disc players in the category during the January 26 period were:
* Sony (32 percent unit share, 33 percent dollar share);
* Toshiba (28 percent unit share, 14 percent dollar share),
* Samsung (13 percent unit share, 23 percent dollar share)
* Sharp (17 percent unit share, 14 percent dollar share),
*Panasonic (8 percent unit share, 12 percent dollar share),
* LG (1 percent unit share, 3 percent dollar share).
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All indications point that Blu-ray may win the format war by the end of 2009, but in the mean time I will buy a Toshiba HD-A3 HD DVD player when it costs $100. I've just started buying the HD DVD combo movies (HD DVD & SD DVD) for $10 to $15 each (Buy one get one free offer); they're the same price as the regular DVD movies of the same title. Price really matters to me and the only way I'll buy a blu-ray is that it costs me $100 or a PS3 that plays PS2 games for $200. HD DVD will not go away this year guarenteed (Exclusive 18-month contract). So, in the meantime I hope to enjoy HD DVD; hell my HDTV is only 1080i!
Steven - 2008-12-2 09:59:00 EST -
First off I would like to mention I have both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray at home and in my store. I like to sell people on owning both formats and have been successful doing so! The BEST performer as far as players go is the Toshiba HD-XA2. None of the other players from both camps in the same price range even come close in both HD playback and upscaling standard DVDs. I guess I am one of the few that still cares about overall performance driven products.
As you can see, so many products have become disposable as far as price/performance goes. Buy it, if it breaks throw it away. It was cheap anyway. This seems to be the way everything is going because most people just do not care anymore. Welcome to the generation of iPods!
The video industry is taking what life preserver they had with HD Playback and butchering it with a format war and profit loss pricing that is bound to hurt the industry for years to come!
HiFi Guy - 2008-11-2 14:27:00 EST -
NPD data does not include Walmart and clubs. Im in the business and if you ask retailers and ecom you will find that HD DVD players are outselling Blu 5-1. The NPD reports are skewed and are reporting demise that just does not exist. Just go to any retailer ask a sales guy on the floor what Hi def DDV players he/ she is selling the most of. Yes content sale are higher on Blu and again it does not include major players in the market . I think thats because you cant find the HD disks as easy as you can Blu. The buyers read these articles and assort accordingly without taking into account all facts. IF you must count PS3's then you must count Computers with HD drives and that number is considerably larger then PS3 numbers
SCMith - 2008-11-2 08:10:00 EST -
Toshiba's strategy to cut prices on the HD DVD players will be all for nought if there is precious little to play on it. Warner's decision to support Blu-Ray should be a wake-up call to those studios supporting HD DVD exclusively that they're going to have to go BD if they want to stay competitive. If you also factor in the number of PS3 consoles out there, and how many are still being sold, BD's lead is very significant. Toshiba's price reduction on the HD DVD players looks like a desperation move that, without adequate software support, will likely fail.
Jay Rudko - 2008-11-2 07:36:00 EST -
"However, Ross Rubin, NPD Group industry analysis director said that in general, “It has only been a couple of weeks since the Warner Bros. announcement [of exclusive support for HD DVD], as well as Toshiba’s..." This quote alone would seem to indicate that lack of professional journalism savvy. Warner Brothers dropped support for HD DVD and yet a person reading this article might well infer the exact opposite.
Even the title of the article seems to exist solely to entice the reader and not to accurately reflect the salient facts of the story. The failure to mention to traditional PS3 sales and their actual impact on the industry also seems a departure from the equality stance that one associates from accurate reporting. Since the documented retail sales of the PS3 are overwhelmingly higher than the stand alone sales, it would be best to allude to that fact in the story’s text. It is a number that can’t be ignored. Of course, the statement should also include the X Box figures as well. In the seemingly fleeting world of accurate journalism--this article should not even exist. A story based on innuendo and "leaked" facts belongs in the realm of yellow journalism.
This writer is in search of a good editor--someone who would suggest a final paragraph that details the information available is opened to many interpretations and that time will tell the real story.
Although I myself have both formats in my theatre, I think that non-articles such as this do a disservice to the novice public that have the potential to place their dollars with a failed format.
I am certain that this writer could find a position in the Bush Whitehouse as a spokesperson for “WMD truth.â€
Tim Comolli - 2008-11-2 01:59:00 EST
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