Spending on Blu-ray Discs was up more than 10% in the second quarter, according to DEG’s mid-year 2011 Home Entertainment Report compiled by DEG members, tracking sources and retail input.
The increase in Blu-ray spending comes despite a 3.6% decrease in overall consumer spending on home entertainment in the second quarter and a 5% decrease in the first half of the year compared to 2010 — $8.8 billion down to $8.34 billion — amid a 16% drop in box-office for titles that entered the home entertainment window in the first half of 2011. DEG notes that comparisons to last year’s sales are highly skewed by the April 2010 release of Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment’s “Avatar,” the biggest movie and top-selling Blu-ray title of all-time and a major DVD hit with more than 12 million discs overall sold in the second quarter of 2010 alone.
Among the highlights of the second quarter numbers:
• In the second quarter, the number of Blu-ray homes grew 16% over 2010 (inclusive of BD set-tops, PS3s and HTiBs,) bringing the total household penetration of all Blu-ray compatible devices to more than 31.6 million U.S. homes. This makes Blu-ray one of the fastest-growing new technologies in the home entertainment industry.
• Blu-ray sales rose 13.1% in the first half of the year to 4.938 million.
• 4.7 million HDTVs were sold to U.S. consumers in second quarter 2011. While flat over the first half last year, HDTV penetration to date is now at more than 66.8 million U.S. households.
Blu-ray sales are expected to be even stronger in the third and fourth quarters with releases of major blockbusters such as “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” “The Hangover Part II,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” and “Fast Five.”
— By Scott Hettrick