Nielsen VideoScan/Home Media Magazine: Blu-ray/DVD/HD DVD Stats (Updated Weekly)

[AT.]

Blu-ray market share fell compared to the same week last year, only the 5th time to happen ever (worryingly, all of them happening in the last 2 month).

I think, I was written something about this in the last year, and in this year also.

The reason is simple: After removing the cheating system from the statistics, the figures became almost true for now: The Blu-Ray was never ever better than HD-DVD, and the figures about it's increasing selling figures against to DVD were complete lies.

Nowdays, the figures clearly show the real thing: DVD is far healthier than Blu-Ray, even the market share is getting lower and lower, but Blu-Ray will never ever replace DVD - and Blu-Ray will struggle to stay alive just like all Sony based things.

The Blu-Ray will be another brick on a large wall between the SACD and the Minidisc.

IMHO, the SD vs. HD optical war is getting very close to the end, with the complete defeat of the HD optical media.

[admin]

Yeah, something similar happened with the PS3 sales stats recently, as the "bump" from the PS3 Slim/price from last year caught up to this year's stats, and the impressive 70-80% year-on-year increase (for the same month) evaporated.

I think Blu-ray's growth accelerated last year, and no doubt helped a bit by the change in stats calculations, but without any hit titles, growth has stagnated (I will post some graphs here later about it). There were more good titles last year due to the writer's strike the year previous, which meant a lot of hits were squeezed into a very tight release time frame. There are less good titles so far this year (Avatar excepted), but there will be some in the next few month, so we could still see Blu-ray's market share go above 30% for a week or two.

Anyway, it all just proves stats aren't as useful as they first appear

[admin]

Stats:

For the week ending 19th September 2010, here are the stats:

Percentage of revenue:
Blu-ray vs DVD: 10.99% vs 89.01%

Blu-ray sales total spending: $18.83 million
DVD sales total spending: $152.49 million

You can read the latest digital edition of HMM (September 27 Issue) with the above stats here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom897764LKH/index.php?startid=3

Top 10:

Finally, a (sort of) A-List release, and Blu-ray was able to bounce back from last week's disappointing sales figures. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, available in both a Blu-ray only release as well as a DVD combo, was the week's top selling title and outsold second place Letters to Juliet by almost a ten to one ratio.

The TV releases from last week continues, with Glee: Season 1 gracing the sales charts at 3rd place, Fringe: Season 2 closely behind in 4th, and The Big Bang Theory: Season 3 a little bit further behind in 5th place. There was also room for an old TV show, somewhat unfortunately cancelled before it was given a proper chance - Firefly: The Complete Series was 10th.

The new Blu-ray edition of Seven and the new release Just Wright, rounded off the list of new releases in the top 10, which was again full of new releases.

But despite the number of new releases, and a couple that are in Blu-ray exclusive packages, with only a couple of these titles selling well on Blu-ray compared to the DVD editions, the market share did not rise to the highs recorded last year, and earlier this year.

And for the first time (ever?), no Avatar in the top 10!

Here's the complete top 10 chart is below (new releases in bold):

1. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
2. Letters to Juliet
3. Glee: Season 1
4. Fringe: Season 2
5. The Big Bang Theory: Season 3
6. Killers
7. Seven
8. The Dark Knight
9. Just Wright
10. Firefly: The Complete Series

Market Share:

Prince of Persia: Sands of time recorded a fairly impressive 42.83% in terms of Blu-ray market share. Not as impressive as The Dark Knight's 70.93%, and Avatar going above 50% (50.03%).

For the other new releases, Fringe: Season 2 managed a respectable 25.28% (for a TV series box set anyway), certainly better than the slightly disappointing 14.75% for the first season of Glee.

The rest of the new releases failed to even make the top 20 charts, with Just Wright at 10%, Letters to Juliet at 10%, and The Big Bang Theory: Season 3 at only 8%.

So despite Prince of Persia's Blu-ray+DVD combo version being counted only in the Blu-ray sales figures, market share was just shy of 11%, which is hardly an impressive figure given the 13% average recorded in the first half of 2010 (the average market share growth for H1 2010 was 65%, the same figure for the last two month: only 9.1%).

The complete Top 10 best sellers and Blu-ray market share tables can be seen here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom897764LKH/index.php?startid=13

Year to Year Comparison

The stats for the week ending 20th September 2009 (click to see analysis) are as follows.

Blu-ray vs DVD: 12.45% vs 87.55%

Blu-ray: $25.49 million
DVD: $179.20 million

Both Blu-ray and DVD sales dropped compared to the same time last year, mainly because this week last year was the week X-Men Origins: Wolverine was released, one of the hit titles of 2009.

So once again, Blu-ray market share dropped compared to the same period last year, the 6th time to happen, all of them occurring in the last 2 month. The reason for this could be many, including the more number of A-list releases this time last year than compared to now, but it certainly seems Blu-ray growth accelerated suddenly this time last year for some reason, but there hasn't been this kind of acceleration this year. I think when 2010's hits are released on Blu-ray, starting with Iron Man 2 in a couple of week's time., we will see the same kind of acceleration again.

DVD sales decreased by $26.71m (down 14.91%), while Blu-ray sales decreased by $6.66m (down 26.13%), producing an overall loss of $33.37 million in combined revenue.

As a result, Blu-ray's market share decreased from 12.45% to 10.99% (a decline of 11.73%).

[admin]

I think Blu-ray's growth accelerated last year, and no doubt helped a bit by the change in stats calculations, but without any hit titles, growth has stagnated (I will post some graphs here later about it).

Here's the graphs as promised.

The first one shows Blu-ray market share, and the trend line for it.

The second one shows the percentage growth in market share.

Both include the figures just posted above (19th September 2010).

[admin]

Stats:

For the week ending 26th September 2010, here are the stats:

Percentage of revenue:
Blu-ray vs DVD: 12.65% vs 87.35%

Blu-ray sales total spending: $22.96 million
DVD sales total spending: $158.59 million

You can read the latest digital edition of HMM (October 4 Issue) with the above stats here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom065597KMC/index.php?startid=1

Top 10:

Blu-ray sales improved, along with market share, on the back of just a single title this week. Robin Hood was the week's top seller easily, beating Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy, in second place, by almost 2:1.

Last week's number one, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, fell to third place.

Two TV shows graced the top 10 again, Spartacus: Blood and Sand: Season 1 and Modern Family: Season 1 managed 4th and 10th respectively.

And there was room for two "tie-in" releases, with Wall Street coming back to the top 10 thanks to the sequel currently showing at the cinemas, and Iron Man also back in the top 10 thanks to its own sequel being released on Blu-ray next week.

And Avatar got back into the top 10 after its strange absence last week.

Here's the complete top 10 chart is below (new releases in bold):

1. Robin Hood
2. Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy
3. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
4. Spartacus: Blood and Sand: Season 1
5. Avatar
6. Letters to Juliet
7. The Dark Knight
8. Wall Street
9. Iron Man
10. Modern Family: Season 1

Market Share:

Part of the reason for the stronger Blu-ray performance this week, in terms of market share, is that the week's most popular title, Robin Hood, managed to get 42.21%. And even the children friendly (ie. not Blu-ray friendly) Tinker Bell movie managed to get 25.56%, which is impressive for this type of title.

And again highlighting a good week for Blu-ray, Spartacus managed 34.63%, which again is impressive for a TV show. Modern Family fared less well, with only 11% market share.

The Dark Knight on Blu-ray managed to outsell its DVD equivalent this week, with Avatar coming close to doing the same (at 49.95%).

The complete Top 10 best sellers and Blu-ray market share tables can be seen here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom065597KMC/index.php?startid=11

Year to Year Comparison

The stats for the week ending 27th September 2009 (click to see analysis) are as follows.

Blu-ray vs DVD: 10.14% vs 89.96%

Blu-ray: $13.66 million
DVD: $120.99 million

While this time last years, sales (for both DVD and Blu-ray) fell back down to earth after the high provided by X-Men Origins: Wolverine due to the lack of a hit follow up release, this year, we do have a good title, Robin Hood, and so both Blu-ray and DVD sales grew compared to the same week last year.

DVD sales increased by $37.6m (up 31.01%), while Blu-ray sales increased by $9.3m (up 68.08%), producing an overall gain of $46.9 million in combined revenue.

And because Blu-ray sales grew at a faster rate than DVD, as a result, Blu-ray's market share increased from 10.14% to 12.65% (a growth of 23.77%).

[admin]

Early news indicates that the Iron Man 2 Blu-ray version has outsold the DVD version (52% versus 48%), beating even Avatar in this regards. It looks like it will be a bumper week for Blu-ray, perhaps with overall market share rising above the 22.37% set by Avatar, maybe even approaching 30%?

Detailed stats will be posted at the usual time next week (Tuesday).

[admin]

Stats:

For the week ending 3rd October 2010, here are the stats:

Percentage of revenue:
Blu-ray vs DVD: 18.34% vs 81.66%

Blu-ray sales total spending: $51.17 million
DVD sales total spending: $227.84 million

You can read the latest digital edition of HMM (October 11 Issue) with the above stats here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom375594KMB/index.php?startid=3

Top 10:

As expected, Iron Man 2 easily dominated the week, but fell short of beating Avatar in terms of raw sales, overall market share, but did beat Avatar in one important aspect (more on that later).

Iron Man 2 managed to outsell the second placed Get Him to the Greek by more than a 15:1 margin, which is all you need to know about how the week was dominated by a single release.

Last week's number one, Robin Hood, fell back to third place.

The only other new releases in the top 10 for the week was Superman/Batman: Apocalypse in 4th, clearly a deliberate act to prevent competing with Iron Man 2.

But overall, the week's result was not a record breaker for Blu-ray, not even close actually. The week in which Avatar was released ($66.57 million) managed to beat this week easily, but even that week wasn't the best on record, with the record still being held by the week in which the The Hangover was released, towards the end of December 2009 ($86.07 million).

But then again, Iron Man 2 was not the year's most popular release either, Toy Story 3 (released in the first week of November) is. Another movie which did more at the box office than Iron Man 2 was Alice in Wonderland, which incidentally managed to get back into the top 10 this week again.

Here's the complete top 10 chart is below (new releases in bold):

1. Iron Man 2
2. Get Him to the Greek
3. Robin Hood
4. Superman/Batman: Apocalypse
5. Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy
6. Iron Man
7. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
8. Alice in Wonderland
9. The Dark Knight
10. Spartacus: Blood and Sand: Season 1

Market Share:

While Iron Man 2 did beat Avatar in terms of market share, managing to go above the magic 50% mark, only the second title to ever do it in the first week of release. Iron Man managed 51.69%, compared to Avatar's 48.8%. The only other movie to have achieved the same is The Losers, released just a couple of weeks ago.

What this means is that for the first time, an A-list movie (The Losers is not really comparable to Iron Man 2 in terms of prestige) managed to sell more Blu-ray copies than DVD copies during the first week of release, and this is an important milestone in the development of the format.

Of course, the fact that Iron Man 2 was available in a combo package kind of clouds the picture somewhat, as the way the combo was marketed (ie. only $2 more than the 2-disc DVD edition) means it was the economical, and future proofing choice, to get the combo instead of the DVD-only editions. It was also interesting to note that the pricing difference between the combo edition and the fully featured DVD-only edition is ever on the decrease, with Avatar's difference being $4 compared. The single disc versions of Iron Man 2 on Blu-ray was also only $1 more than the single disc DVD version (and $5 cheaper than the 2-disc DVD edition).

But overall Blu-ray market share, at 18.34%, is only the third highest on record, behind Avatar week's 22.37% and District 9's 21.18%. At 18.34%, it was just above Star Trek's and Alice in Wonderland's (both at 18.32%).

For the other new releases in the top 10, Superman/Batman: Apocalypse managed to get a very respectable 32%, while Get Him to the Greeks got 28%.

The complete Top 10 best sellers and Blu-ray market share tables can be seen here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom375594KMB/index.php?startid=9

Year to Year Comparison

The stats for the week ending 4th October 2009 (click to see analysis) are as follows.

Blu-ray vs DVD: 11.59% vs 88.41%

Blu-ray: $21.81 million
DVD: $166.44 million

Thanks to Iron Man 2, and there being no equivalent release this time last year, DVD sales increased by $61.4m (up 36.89%), while Blu-ray sales increased by $29.36m (up 134.62%), producing an overall gain of $90.76 million in combined revenue.

And because Blu-ray sales grew at a faster rate than DVD, as a result, Blu-ray's market share increased from 11.59% to 18.34% (a growth of 58.24%).

[admin]

Stats:

For the week ending 10th October 2010, here are the stats:

Percentage of revenue:
Blu-ray vs DVD: 20.58% vs 79.42%

Blu-ray sales total spending: $53.80 million
DVD sales total spending: $207.62 million

You can read the latest digital edition of HMM (October 18 Issue) with the above stats here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom056643UTH/index.php?startid=3

Top 10:

For the first time since Avatar, and only the second time in the format's history, the 20% overall market share barrier was broken by Blu-ray this week, thanks largely to two titles - last week's number one (and this week's number two) Iron Man 2, and this week's number one, the temporarily Blu-ray (and Blu-ray/DVD combo) only release, Beauty and the Beast: Diamond Edition. The Disney classic sold three times as many copies of Iron Man 2, which itself was one the highest sellers on Blu-ray last week.

The recent remake of The Karate Kid, was third, while another remake, A Nightmare on Elm Street, was in 4th.

There was room in the top 10 for even more new releases, or at least new to Blu-ray release. Starting with the classics The Exorcist at 6th, The Last of the Mohicans: Director's Definitive Cut at 8th, and the new Splice at 9th, and finished off by Tarantino's Grindhouse at 10th.

With so many new releases, the top title being a Blu-ray exclusive, plus Iron Man still selling strong, allowed Blu-ray to actually increase in sales compared to last week, although still very short of the record set in the closing weeks of December 2009.

Here's the complete top 10 chart is below (new releases in bold):

1. Beauty and the Beast: Diamond Edition
2. Iron Man 2
3. The Karate Kid
4. A Nightmare on Elm Street
5. Robin Hood
6. The Exorcist
7. Get Him to the Greek
8. The Last of the Mohicans: Director's Definitive Cut
9. Splice
10. Grindhouse

Market Share:

As mentioned earlier, Blu-ray market share was the second highest on record, at 20.58%. The highest was recorded in the week when Avatar was released, at 22.37%.

This was largely thanks to the week's best selling Blu-ray title, Beauty and the Beast: Diamond Edition. While a DVD version of the movie was available in the Blu-ray/DVD combo set, there were no DVD-only versions available as per Disney policy, which delays the DVD-only editions for several weeks after the Blu-ray releases. And since Blu-ray/DVD combo editions are always counted as a Blu-ray sale in the statistics, this meant that effectively, the week's most popular Blu-ray title had a 100% market share, which obviously helped to push overall Blu-ray market share up. The same was experienced with Disney's Snow White release on Blu-ray, which was responsible for the highest market share on record at the time it was released, and incidentally, released in the exact same week last year.

And to further add to Blu-ray's advantage, the new editions of The Exorcist, The Last of the Mohicans and Grindhouse were all Blu-ray only editions, with no equivalent DVD releases at the same time, and so effectively, these had 100% Blu-ray market share as well.

But for the titles that did have DVD-only editions, the market share figures were less impressive. Iron Man 2, after last week's over 50% market share, dropped all the way down to 10.33% - this seems quite a steep drop, and I'm not sure what is actually going on here. Had Iron Man 2's market share stayed near last week's high, overall Blu-ray market share would have been even higher.

For the week's new releases (in the top 10) though, A Nightmare on Elm Street had the highest market share at 37.06%. Splice was next best at 31.86%, with The Karate Kid coming in at 27.22%.

The complete Top 10 best sellers and Blu-ray market share tables can be seen here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom056643UTH/index.php?startid=17

Year to Year Comparison

The stats for the week ending 11th October 2009 (click to see analysis) are as follows.

Blu-ray vs DVD: 17.25% vs 82.75%

Blu-ray: $32.70 million
DVD: $156.82 million

Even comparing to *the* best week for Blu-ray up to that time last year (when Snow White was released on Blu-ray), Blu-ray revenue and market share both grew again for the same week this year.

Thanks to Beauty and the Beast, Iron Man 2 and the swathe of new releases and Blu-ray exclusive, while DVD sales increased by $50.8m (up 32.39%), Blu-ray sales increased by a much more substantial (for the format at least) $21.1m (up 64.53%), producing an overall gain of $71.9 million in combined revenue.

And because Blu-ray sales grew at a faster rate than DVD, as a result, Blu-ray's market share increased from 17.25% to 20.58% (a growth of 19.34%).

[AT.]

This was largely thanks to the week's best selling Blu-ray title, Beauty and the Beast: Diamond Edition. While a DVD version of the movie was available in the Blu-ray/DVD combo set, there were no DVD-only versions available as per Disney policy, which delays the DVD-only editions for several weeks after the Blu-ray releases.

Which means, it's a totally uncorrect cheating again to raise the Blu-Ray selling figures, as in a correct system these kind of sets used to be counted as one copy for DVD and one copy for Blu-Ray. It's IMHO a totally unfair solutin to add 100% percent for BR and 0% to DVD, while there were the same selling figures!

Without this kind of cheating, anyone can see, that the BR selling were dropped incredibely, while the DVD selling was raised higher then almost ever WITHOUT(!) counthing the above title!

IMHO to count the BR titles this way is also unfair, as there were several families, who purchased the combo FOR THE DVD, as their childrens were wanted it as soon as possible, so - and IMHO again - there will be a great surpise for the BR lovers, when the DVD edition will be released.

[admin]

You're right, it is sort of cheating, more so when Disney deliberately delays the DVD-only editions, forcing those that want the movie quickly to buy the combo, even if they don't have Blu-ray player. But even without the delaying tactics, the way combos are priced (like the Iron Man 2 prices I mentioned in last week's analysis), it almost makes no sense sometimes to buy the DVD-only edition, especially the two-disc edition. And this is why I always try to highlight these in the analysis.

But on the other hand, it would also be unfair to count these combos as DVD sales, or do some kind of 50/50 split (any split would be a pure guess). The best way is to count them individually, and that will also give us an important set of figures that tells us whether combos are a hit or not.

[AT.]

You are right, that could be a real fair solution!

[admin]

Stats:

For the week ending 17th October 2010, here are the stats:

Percentage of revenue:
Blu-ray vs DVD: 15.72% vs 84.28%

Blu-ray sales total spending: $30.49 million
DVD sales total spending: $163.50 million

You can read the latest digital edition of HMM (October 25 Issue) with the above stats here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom789945KBM/index.php?startid=3

Top 10:

How to Train Your Dragon was this week's top selling Blu-ray title, but overall, Blu-ray sales receded from the high of last week (second highest ever, remember).

'Dragon' beat the 'Beast', as in last week's number one, Beauty and the Beast, by a small margin, with Iron Man further behind in number 3.

As for the new releases this week, the release schedule was somewhat lighter following the hectic ones from the last two weeks, with Jonah Hex in 5th, being the only other new release to hit the top 10.

A quiet week or two is now expected before things heat up in time for Toy Story 3, to be released in the first week of November.

Here's the complete top 10 chart is below (new releases in bold):

1. How to Train Your Dragon
2. Beauty and the Beast: Diamond Edition
3. Iron Man 2
4. The Karate Kid
5. Jonah Hex
6. Robin Hood
7. A Nightmare on Elm Street
8. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time
9. Avatar
10. Get Him to the Greek

Market Share:

Market share was down from last week's 20+ percent to a more "normal" 15.72%. Both of the week's new releases in the top 10 also made the market share top 10, but in reverse order as Jonah Hex got 33.55% while How To Train Your Dragon managed 30.53%. Similar titles to 'Dragon' in the past have done much less than 30%, so this is a sign of Blu-ray's growth, even if overall market share numbers have grown only slightly in the last year (for example, see the comparison of the same week from last year).

Iron Man 2 bounced back in the market share charts with 40.93%, while Sherlock Holmes, Avatar and Kick-Ass all recorded above 50+ percent market share, meaning more Blu-ray copies of these movies were sold than the DVD versions - impressive considering how "old" these releases are.

The complete Top 10 best sellers and Blu-ray market share tables can be seen here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom789945KBM/index.php?startid=15

Year to Year Comparison

The stats for the week ending 18th October 2009 (click to see analysis) are as follows.

Blu-ray vs DVD: 13.16% vs 86.85%

Blu-ray: $25.09 million
DVD: $165.63 million

Blu-ray sales grew compared to the same time last year, but DVD sales dropped, allow Blu-ray market share to post an increased compared to the same week last year.

Blu-ray sales increased by $5.4m (up 21.52%), while DVD sales dropped by $2.13m (down 1.29%) producing an overall gain of $3.27 million in combined revenue.

Blu-ray's market share increased from 13.16% to 15.72% (a growth of 19.45%).

[dr_ml422]

You're right, it is sort of cheating, more so when Disney deliberately delays the DVD-only editions, forcing those that want the movie quickly to buy the combo, even if they don't have Blu-ray player. But even without the delaying tactics, the way combos are priced (like the Iron Man 2 prices I mentioned in last week's analysis), it almost makes no sense sometimes to buy the DVD-only edition, especially the two-disc edition. And this is why I always try to highlight these in the analysis.

But on the other hand, it would also be unfair to count these combos as DVD sales, or do some kind of 50/50 split (any split would be a pure guess). The best way is to count them individually, and that will also give us an important set of figures that tells us whether combos are a hit or not.

You mean count the Blu-ray/DVD combo totally separate as a stat? The only way this would be of any help is if there was a individual Blu-ray and DVD disc available at the same time to then compare the sales of all 3.

While it is true that it doesn't make sense to buy the DVD edition 2 set or not because the Blu-ray one is cheaper sometimes even with the DVD combo, it's very unfair to those that want a personal backup copy as backing up a Blu-ray on any of the available Blu-ray blanks is still not a very good option given the quality of said product.

There's several titles I want that are way cheaper on Blu-ray, though I'd have no real firm and proven backup as I would with a DVD. This also will have to be addressed if Blu-ray wants to be the sole format, as managed digital copy is not cutting it.

[admin]

I think it would be helpful to separate the stats, so we can have something like this every week:

DVD: $150m
Blu-ray: $20m
Combo: $5m

This would allows us to easily find out just exactly what is going on when Combo only titles like Beauty of the Beast are released. And if the Combo's represent a good chunk of the market, then that's more reason for studios to release more of them (they would already know this from their own numbers, but it would make things clearer for us).

The individual title market share chart would be enhanced by having three columns, for Blu-ray, DVD and Combo, and then listing the market share figures for each, so we can find out just exactly how many people chose the combo version over the Blu-ray and/or DVD only versions.

[dr_ml422]

Makes all the sense doing it that way. I see from the Blu-ray best deals link on the Main Forum that some really big titles like TDK etc... have come way down. Again it's a great buy, though the personal backup still is a issue. I might just pick up some of those deals anyway as I've yet to experience a Blu-ray movie.