After Format War, Blu-ray Sales Still Weak

A recent study by the NPD Group finds that despite vanquishing rival high-definition format HD DVD, Blu-ray sales haven't picked up.

Sony’s Blu-ray high-definition optical disc format way have won the so-called high-def format war when Toshiba threw in the towel on its competing HD DVD format back in February—but, so far, Blu-ray sales don’t show it. New sales figures from market research firm NPD show that sales of Blu-ray standalone players dropped a stunning 40 percent between January and February (presumably as many potential customers were waiting out the high-def war), but rose only 2 percent from February to March once Toshiba gave up on HD DVD. And the sales figures are still so low that NPD refused to publish specific numbers because it might be too easy to identify specific retailers from the figures.

The general wisdom was that once the high-definition disc field was winnowed down to one technology, consumers would embrace it in droves, particularly as conflicting marketing messages vanished and the library of compatible movie titles grew.

However, instead, consumers appear to be bypassing Blu-ray media in favor of high-definition downloadable content or—more tellingly—embracing inexpensive standard DVD players that can upscale content to 1080p resolution. Where Blu-ray players are still priced over $300, upconverting DVD players can be had for around $50, and they’re compatible with consumer’s existing DVD collections. In fact, upconverting DVD players have seen a five percent increase in sales during the first quarter of 2008, compared to the same quarter in 2007.

Some industry watchers project that Blu-ray player prices will drop below $200 in time for the end-of-year holidays, and consumers will begin adopting the technology at that point. However, ABIResearch forecasts it will take even longer for Blu-ray to gain significant market share, with the market only embracing Blu-ray inanother 12 to 18 months—perhaps just in time for the 2009 end-of-year holiday season.