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

[admin]

Stats:

For the week ending 24th October 2010, here are the stats:

Percentage of revenue:
Blu-ray vs DVD: 19.43% vs 80.57%

Blu-ray sales total spending: $31.87 million
DVD sales total spending: $132.14 million

You can read the latest digital edition of HMM (November 1 Issue) with the above stats here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom450065NCG/index.php?startid=3

Top 10:

DVD sales dropped compared to the week before, but Blu-ray sales not only held up, but increased slightly, and this accounts for a very good week in terms of Blu-ray market share, almost breaking the 20% mark (which has only been achieved twice before, it has to be said).

As for which releases helped to achieve this, it was still mostly last week's number one, How to Train Your Dragon, which remained as this week's number one. But while the new release Predators failed to take top spot, it did help with the overall market share numbers by recording a relatively high individual market share figure.

Other new releases for the week included the 35th Anniversary edition of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which was a Blu-ray exclusive (there was no 35th anniversary DVD set), which came in 5th.

Another classic, and Blu-ray only release, was Apocalypse Now at 8th, coming in two different Blu-ray flavours (a 2-disc special edition and a 3-disc "full disclosure" edition).

Disneynature's Oceans came in at 9th, while 10th spot also went to a new Blu-ray only, classic release of the 50th Anniversary edition of Psycho.

So with so many Blu-ray only exclusives ranking in the top 10, naturally, Blu-ray market share increased to near record levels for the year.

Here's the complete top 10 chart is below (new releases in bold, and new to the list, Blu-ray exclusives are denoted by *):

1. How to Train Your Dragon
2. Predators
3. *Beauty and the Beast: Diamond Edition
4. Iron Man 2
5. *The Rocky Horror Picture Show: 35th Anniversary Edition
6. Robin Hood
7. The Karate Kid
8. *Apocalypse Now
9. Disneynature's Oceans
10. *Psycho: 50th Anniversary Edition

Market Share:

As mentioned earlier, market share was up thanks to the swath of Blu-ray only releases, new and old, that continues to rank in the top 10 for sales.

But for the non exclusives, Predators got a fairly respectable 42.43%, while Disneynature's Oceans did almost as well with 42.34%.

And with The Dark Knight at 69%, Sherlock Holmes at 54% and Avatar just above 50%, it's easy to see where the good overall market share number is coming from.

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

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom450065NCG/index.php?startid=11

Year to Year Comparison

The stats for the week ending 25th October 2009 (click to see analysis) are as follows.

Blu-ray vs DVD: 15.57% vs 84.43%

Blu-ray: $38.86 million
DVD: $210.66 million

Despite the impressive Blu-ray market share figures, actual Blu-ray sales dropped, but not as much as DVD sales. This time last year, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was released, and this accounts for the overall revenue drop, as there was nothing of equal measure for the same week this year.

Blu-ray sales decreased by $6.99m (down 17.99%), while DVD sales dropped by a hefty $78.52m (down 37.27%) producing an overall loss of $85.51 million in combined revenue.

Blu-ray's market share increased from 15.57% to 19.43% (a growth of 24.79%).

[AcidRain]

I think the reason BD combos count towards BD only is because the DVD is an actual extra, when they do the anouncements they list the special features like "directors comentary, deleted scens, behind the scenes, etc, etc, DVD copy and/or digital copy"

Some people that buy the BD-combos sell the dvd and digital copy on ebay or give it away. You can sell the dvd for $5-10 and the digital copy for another $5-10. You get $10-20 back and that extra BD with extras that some combos have like iron man 2 or twilight eclipse.

Also the US is not the only place where BD is being sold, infact if i'm not mistaken in Japan DVD is almost obsolete and in europe blu-ray has a bigger share than in the US.

Also i think AT. is an hd-dvd hurt fanboy that think hd-dvd lost because of bad or "cheating" reporting stats, blutach is an anti-sony hateboy, he probably broke something and sony didnt honor the waranty (btw he hasnt posted in this thread in years but i was interested in seeing the dvd/bd sales so i went and read all 21 pages), and dr_ml422 is just an average joe whom would probably find it dificult to follow the plot of a sitcom. Like watchmen only because he didnt like he didnt think it would have a huge comic fanbase following, especially after 300.

And about digital downloads, something mr_ml422 sorry dr_ml422 it seem to be fan about, where do you think you are going to store all that information? right now i got about 700dvd (i stop buying dvds since 2007) and about 300 bd so I would need around 22TB, when I replace all my SD movies to HD then I would need around 50TB not counting any new movie I would get during that period, so I'm looking at 55TB. (btw that TB means Terabyte, thats 1000 Gigabytes) So I would need 55 1 TB HDs, but I wouldnt need 55 1TB HDs because we all know how likely HDs are to fail so I would need 110 HDs to have them in Raid 10. Now I know you are going to say you can compress them in MKV or that not everyone has 1000 movies. But you would still be looking at a lot of hard drives, not to mention that you would still need to download a 50gb movie in less than an hour. I think digital downloads or streaming media is fine for rentals but not for a movie to keep.


btw i'm not an Blu-ray fanboy i'm just an HD fanboy who like blu-ray not just because of its awesome PQ but also because of its amazing AQ which no dvd could ever achieve.

thats just my 2c.

[admin]

Hi AcidRain, welcome to the forum!

I definitely agree with you about the DVD portion of Combos counting as a "bonus feature", but only when a DVD-only package is available for purchase. If the only choice for people with DVD players only is to buy the Blu-ray+DVD combo version, then it's the Blu-ray disc, not the DVD, that's actually a "bonus feature" (something for the future, perhaps). In fact, the Disney timed exclusive Blu-ray+DVD combos are even available in DVD packaging, instead of the normal shorter Blu-ray packaging, and I think Disney does this to make sure people looking for the DVD version aren't scared off by the different looking package (to what they normally buy).

And just recently, here in Australia, I saw a TV ad for what's called a "Foxpack Plus", which is just what 20th Fox calls their Blu-ray+DVD combos marketed at family/kids. The marketing is that parents can get "an extra Blu-ray" in the pack, so it's very much Blu-ray being used as a "bonus feature" (I think it's also in DVD packaging). You can see the promotional campaign for it here:

http://www.brandpower.com/AUS/Spotlight.asp?id=1128

Instead of guessing at consumer intentions, it's just easier for everyone to separate the stats, and people can decide for themselves whether the sales figures should belong to Blu-ray or shared with DVD.

As for the comments aimed at specific members, that's not really necessary. I know plenty of Blu-ray fans that also question the calculation method. Some that want everything to be released as combos while others don't like it when there's no Blu-ray-only version, since they don't care about having a DVD copy of the film and want a cheaper package instead.

[admin]

Stats:

For the week ending 31st October 2010, here are the stats:

Percentage of revenue:
Blu-ray vs DVD: 18.41% vs 81.59%

Blu-ray sales total spending: $21.06 million
DVD sales total spending: $93.36 million

You can read the latest digital edition of HMM (November 8 Issue) with the above stats here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom123386JBZ/index.php?startid=3

Top 10:

Blu-ray maintained its relatively high market share, but that was largely down to sales dropping not as badly as DVD sales compared to the last week. In fact, DVD sales were so "bad" that it falls below the $100m mark for the first time in a long time.

The fall was largely down to the lacklustre release list. The top title of the week was Sex and the City 2, hardly the type of title to attract your typical Blu-ray buyer (it's fairly low title market share, expanded upon further below, proves this fact).

The new releases were limited, although the second placed Back To the Future 25th Anniversary Trilogy was a highlight for Blu-ray, especially when you consider the market share figure for this non-exclusive Blu-ray release (which was probably responsible for Blu-ray holding on to an overall high market share this week - more on that later).

The Girl Who Played With Fire was the next highest ranked new release, at 7th. Another new release of a classic/catalog release was the Alien Anthology, which was exclusive to the Blu-ray format. It came in at 8th.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Season 2 in 9th completed the list of new releases in the top 10.

Here's the complete top 10 chart is below (new releases in bold, and Blu-ray exclusives are denoted by *):

1. Sex and the City 2
2. Back To the Future 25th Anniversary Trilogy
3. *Beauty and the Beast: Diamond Edition
4. How to Train Your Dragon
5. Predators
6. Iron Man 2
7. The Girl Who Played With Fire
8. *Alien Anthology
9. Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Season 2
10. *The Rocky Horror Picture Show: 35th Anniversary Edition

Market Share:

While Back to the Future 25th Anniversary, like recent "anniversary" releases of classics, wasn't a Blu-ray exclusive, it nearly sold as well as one. It was this week's best title in terms of market share, with an amazing 85.51% of all sales belonging to the Blu-ray version.

This is easy to understand though, because most buyers would be ones that already have the DVD versions and are choosing to upgrade, as opposed to new buyers who don't have the movies on home video. But still, 85% is very impressive, and perhaps gives us the main reason behind why many studios are releasing new packages for old movies as Blu-ray exclusives (including combos): because there's no point in releasing a DVD version that only contributes to 15% of sales.

But none of the other new releases did as well, or even did well at all by recent standard. Sex and the City 2 predictably had only a 18% market share, while The Girl Who Played With Fire only did a little bit better at 26.06%. Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Season 2 did slightly better again at 27.97%.

So a largely average week with the new releases, but one title (and the Blu-ray exclusive Alien Anthology) helped to make things pretty positive for Blu-ray.

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

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom123386JBZ/index.php?startid=13

Year to Year Comparison

The stats for the week ending 1st November 2009 (click to see analysis) are as follows.

Blu-ray vs DVD: 13.47% vs 86.53%

Blu-ray: $26.52 million
DVD: $170.30 million

Again just like last week, despite Blu-ray market share figures, actual Blu-ray sales dropped and it was joined by a much bigger drop in DVD sales. While this time last year, sales were still enjoying a high from Transformers 2, this week's figures are particularly bad because DVD sales dropped below $100m, something that I can't even remember happening many times in the 2 and a bit years I've done this analysis. Of course, the calibre of releases has a lot to do with this (combined box office for this week's releases is actually 55% lower than the same week last year).

Blu-ray sales decreased by $5.46m (down 20.59%), while DVD sales dropped by $76.94m (down 45.18%) producing an overall loss of $82.4 million in combined revenue.

Blu-ray's market share increased from 13.47% to 18.41% (a growth of 36.67%).

[AT.]

Also i think AT. is an hd-dvd hurt fanboy that think hd-dvd lost because of bad or "cheating" reporting stats

Dear AcidRain,

You are wrong about my reasons to hate Sony - as I hate Sony, because all the new technics, they are interesting, are going to die with a real slow agony, just like minidisc, SACD, and the other Sony based things.

IMHO, You can remember, that there was the new HD system, almost ready to replace the DVD - and then came Sony again, and said: It will be mine, and just mine, or I will kill it. And there came the format war, which were based on totally lied figures were produced by Sony, and I was told it at that time, that these lies will take a revenge very soon after the war will end. Please remember, at that time, there were figures, that the BR sales are even higher(!) then the DVD selling (not even counting the HD DVD sales), and please see the figures now: The figures are much worse then ever.

It's not about HD DVD, it's about the replacement of the old DVD system, with a new HD system. I was sure at that time, and I was told, that HD DVD is the only one system, which can replace the DVD, as anybody can understand, that it's an advanced DVD system, which can even play the DVD, and the HD DVD, and because the majority of the HD DVD's had two sides, these DVD-s were usable in ALL DVD players, even in the car, even in the children's room.

By this thinking, plese refer the "additional DVD" for the BR marketing, they were just figured out what I was told at that time: The DVD penetration is too big to fall, and as You can clearly see, nowdays the downloading, and the on-demand services are going to higher and higher, mostly, because You don't need any storage in this case(!), so You can see the purchases movies everywhere without any limitation!. And, as You can also see, nowdays not even the SACD is struggling, but also the CD quality is too HIGH(!) for the masses, and the Mp3 rules the world.

And in a market, in a world like this - IMHO, there is no more place for a HD optical format, mostly because there are no campaigns, no advertising, and therefore the peoples are not really interesting about a system called "Blu Ray". Nobody is interesting about it, and You can clearly see this from the figures, because please look at these figures and see the difference: The DVD selling are for US only, but the BR sales are almost World-Wide sales, as several BR releases can be purchaed in the US ONLY.

Please see the prices: Today the BR releases has almost the same price as the DVD's, but even this case, You are not able to sell it in a real high value. Please refer the figures again: The DVD for the US selling can be 10x more if You want to see the WW selling figures, but the BR can be at most the double, which is a not reasonable market for the big companies. Please also refer the Sony's financial positions, they are almost bankrupted, and the main reason was to force the BR/PS3 combo, which was on of the world's ever blasted idea.

IMHO1, just the NAME, the HD DVD was more than enough to replace the DVD, because I'am dead sure, that with the cheapest technology, today there used to be ONLY HD DVD in every car, every notebook, every PC, as the price to create an HD DVD player and an HD DVD is the absolutely same, as it is if we are talking about a DVD player/release.

IMHO2: The employees at Warner are banging their head into the wall daily, because their decision leaded to kill the HD format, and by this, to kill this market.

So, I'm just banging my head, becuase Sony ruined the optical HD market (too), but I'm not interested in it, as I was sure, that the BR will never be able to replace the DVD, so I was never invest any penny to any HD optical media.

I was simply wanted an HD optical technology at that time, and that's all. And, if You can see my previous posts, You can clearly see, that I was right about almost everything: About the lied figures, about the cheating, and the real selling figures.

And I just want to say in summarise my opinion about these questions:

I'm not happy, because I was right.

[admin]

Stats:

For the week ending 7th November 2010, here are the stats:

Percentage of revenue:
Blu-ray vs DVD: 20.41% vs 79.59%

Blu-ray sales total spending: $48.33 million
DVD sales total spending: $188.45 million

You can read the latest digital edition of HMM (November 15 Issue) with the above stats here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom085597KMX/index.php?startid=3

Top 10:

This week was all about Toy Story 3, which outsold second place The Sound of Music: 45th Anniversary Edition by almost a ten to one margin.

And thanks to this, Blu-ray market share broke through the 20% marker again, for only the fourth time in the format's history, and the second time in the last month!

The Toy Story Trilogy box set also managed to rank in the top 10, coming in at 5th, which is sort of an exclusive box set that's only available in combo flavour (there's no "DVD only" equivalent).

The Disney/Pixar domination continued with Cars Toon: Mater's Tall Tales.

The other new release in the top 10 was The Pacific, which managed to get third place.

Here's the complete top 10 chart is below (new releases in bold, and Blu-ray exclusives are denoted by *):

1. Toy Story 3
2. *The Sound of Music: 45th Anniversary Edition
3. The Pacific
4. *Beauty and the Beast: Diamond Edition
5. *The Toy Story Trilogy box set
6. Cars Toon: Mater's Tall Tales
7. How to Train Your Dragon
8. Iron Man 2
9. Kick-Ass
10. Back To the Future 25th Anniversary Trilogy

Market Share:

Blu-ray market share could have been a lot higher if Toy Story 3 was a Blu-ray (timed) exclusive, like many recent Disney releases, or if it had received higher individual Blu-ray market share. A title that's so universally appealing will always have a lower Blu-ray market share because the majority of home video users are still using DVD, and such an appealing title means lots of DVD sales.

Still, Toy Story 3's 33.14% is not too bad compared to previous Pixar titles, and this figure does not include the Blu-ray exclusive trilogy box set, which may have been more appealing to Blu-ray buyers, especially those that don't have the other two movies (it only works out to be a few dollars more than buying the titles individually, and you get a collector's toy box to store your discs as a bonus).

The Sound of Music was a Blu-ray exclusive, and a classic title such as this one was always expected to sell well.

The Pacific got 35.17%, which is fairly good for a TV mini-series box set. And Cars Toons was just slightly higher in the market share charts with 36.42%.

So it was a record breaking week for Blu-ray, the second week in a month in which market share was above 20%, and chances are, this feat will be repeated a few more times before the end of the year.

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

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom085597KMX/index.php?startid=11

Year to Year Comparison

The stats for the week ending 8th November 2009 (click to see analysis) are as follows.

Blu-ray vs DVD: 14.32% vs 85.68%

Blu-ray: $28.06 million
DVD: $167.93 million

Toy Story 3 helped the home video market record a rise compared to the same week last year, for both Blu-ray and DVD sales.

Blu-ray sales increased by $20.27m (up 72.24%), while DVD sales increased by $20.52m (up 12.22%) producing an overall gain of $40.79 million in combined revenue. It's interesting to note that Blu-ray almost contributed to half of this overall gain, and that's pretty normal these days (what's more normal is Blu-ray making up for DVD losses, which is exactly what the format was designed to do).

Blu-ray's market share increased from 14.32% to 20.41% (a growth of 42.53%).

[admin]

Stats:

For the week ending 14th November 2010, here are the stats:

Percentage of revenue:
Blu-ray vs DVD: 15.24% vs 84.76%

Blu-ray sales total spending: $29.30 million
DVD sales total spending: $163.02 million

You can read the latest digital edition of HMM (November 22 Issue) with the above stats here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom993724MCN/index.php?startid=3

Top 10:

Blu-ray market share retreated as the new releases this week were not of the same calibre, nor in the same quantity, as previous weeks. This allowed last week's number one, Toy Story 3, to continue to lead the chart, easily beating second placed Grown Ups.

Scott Pilgrim vs The World was in third place, but that was that for new releases in the top 10, except for Superman/Shazam: The Return of Black Adam in 10th place.

Here's the complete top 10 chart is below (new releases in bold, and Blu-ray exclusives are denoted by *):

1. Toy Story 3
2. Grown Ups
3. Scott Pilgrim vs The World
4. *Beauty and the Beast: Diamond Edition
5. *The Sound of Music: 45th Anniversary Edition
6. The Pacific
7. How to Train Your Dragon
8. Kick-Ass
9. Iron Man 2
10. Superman/Shazam: The Return of Black Adam

Market Share:

As expected, market share dropped following the recent highs thanks to a breather in new, high profile releases.

But even as overall market share dropped, individual titles still recorded some impressive result, with Scott Pilgrim vs The World leading the way with 51.37%, making one of the few titles (three actually, I think, The Losers and Iron Man 2 being the other two) to sell more Blu-ray copies in the first week of release than DVDs.

It still wasn't as impressive as the 82.69% for Kick-Ass, which is now heavily discounted to the point there the three-disc combo version is actually $7 cheaper than the single DVD release ($12.99 versus $19.99, on Amazon). With this kind of pricing in play, the only surprise is that 17.31% still preferred the single disc, more expensive, DVD-only version!

Sherlock Holmes also managed to get above 50% this week.

For the other new releases, Grown Ups did considerably worse at only 23.47% (which would have been impressive only a year ago, but is now largely disappointing). Superman/Shazam: The Return of Black Adam got 34.63%.

With the top selling Toy Story 3 falling back to only 26.01% market share, the overall Blu-ray market share dropped as a result.

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

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom993724MCN/index.php?startid=9

Year to Year Comparison

The stats for the week ending 15th November 2009 (click to see analysis) are as follows.

Blu-ray vs DVD: 16.76% vs 83.24%

Blu-ray: $41.03 million
DVD: $203.76 million

It's one of those weeks again where you're comparing a relatively quiet week this year to a very busy week last year. In this case, it was "Grown Ups" up again "Up". Both DVD and Blu-ray sales were down compared to the same time last year, and Blu-ray market share was down too.

Blu-ray sales decreased by $11.73m (down 28.59%), while DVD sales decreased by $40.74m (down 19.99%) producing an overall loss of $52.47 million in combined revenue.

Blu-ray's market share decreased from 16.76% to 15.24% (a decline of 9.07%).

[admin]

Stats:

For the week ending 21st November 2010, here are the stats:

Percentage of revenue:
Blu-ray vs DVD: 18.67% vs 81.33%

Blu-ray sales total spending: $36.11 million
DVD sales total spending: $157.31 million

You can read the latest digital edition of HMM (November 29 Issue) with the above stats here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom901127YBH/index.php?startid=1

Top 10:

A small rise for Blu-ray, and a small drop for DVD, allowed overall Blu-ray market share to increase this week.

The release most responsible for this was Avatar, no not the original release, but the new extended version (although the ranking takes into account all version of Avatar). It just managed to outsell the second placed A Christmas Carol.

Another kind of avatar was in third place, The Last Airbender did well considering the critical response.

And that was it for new releases in the top 10.

Here's the complete top 10 chart is below (new releases in bold, and Blu-ray exclusives are denoted by *):

1. Avatar: Extended Edition
2. A Christmas Carol
3. The Last Airbender
4. Toy Story 3
5. *The Sound of Music: 45th Anniversary Edition
6. *Beauty and the Beast: Diamond Edition
7. Grown Ups
8. Scott Pilgrim vs The World
9. The Pacific
10. How to Train Your Dragon

Market Share:

The week's top selling title, Avatar, got over the 50% mark again with 50.15% of all sales belong to the Blu-ray format. This figure includes all editions of Avatar, not just the extended version.

This, coupled with Kick-Ass' 76.58%, meant that overall Blu-ray market share was pushed upwards.

Of the new releases, both did equally well, with A Christmas Carol at 36.97% and The Last Airbender at 35.67%.

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

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom901127YBH/index.php?startid=9

Year to Year Comparison

The stats for the week ending 22nd November 2009 (analysis wasn't available last year) are as follows.

Blu-ray vs DVD: 18.32% vs 81.68%

Blu-ray: $47.25 million
DVD: $210.65 million

Blu-ray/DVD market share remained almost unchanged from year to year, despite both dropping in terms of revenue (but dropping at the same rate).

While this seems like bad news, but it is understandable given this time last year, Star Trek was released, and it was one of the best selling Blu-ray titles of 2009. The calibre of releases this week could not compare, despite Avatar (which is a re-release, not a new release). It's literally comparing A Christmas Carol (and The Last Airbender) with Star Trek. too.

Blu-ray sales decreased by $11.14m (down 23.58%), while DVD sales decreased by $53.34m (down 25.32%) producing an overall loss of $64.48 million in combined revenue.

Blu-ray's market share increased from 18.32% to 18.67% (a growth of 1.91%).

Next week will include the Black Friday sales results, which traditionally mean a bump for DVD market share (due to discounts), but the bump may not be as high this year due to equally (or more) aggressive Blu-ray discounts.

[admin]

Stats:

For the week ending 28th November 2010, here are the stats:

Percentage of revenue:
Blu-ray vs DVD: 16.82% vs 83.18%

Blu-ray sales total spending: $83.48 million
DVD sales total spending: $412.76 million

You can read the latest digital edition of HMM (December 6 Issue) with the above stats here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom846672FGM/index.php?startid=1

Top 10:

It's Black Friday week, and it's definitely been a "blu" Thanksgiving this year in the US. Even though Blu-ray market share hasn't broken any records, compared to the last Black Friday week, and also looking at total revenue, Blu-ray was definitely a big hit this Black Friday.

With $83.48m in revenue, this represents one of the best weeks ever for Blu-ray, although still short of the record set in the last few weeks of 2009. But with Inception coming in a few weeks, and more sales on the horizon, there's still plenty of time left for Blu-ray to go above $90m or even $100m for a single week worth of sales this year.

But it only makes sense to compare this week with last year's Black Friday week, and when you make the comparison, Blu-ray's gains this year is clear to see (more on this in the market share section below).

A large range of titles are responsible for the near record Blu-ray sales, but the week's best selling title was The Expendables, outselling a previous number one, Toy Story 3, by almost a 2:1 margin this week.

But otherwise, it was pretty light in terms of new releases. In fact, there were none other in the top10. But Black Friday is all about discounted older titles, and these ruled. Three of these discounted titles included The Lord of the Rings movies, which were sold at the discounted $9.99 price as part of Amazon's Black Friday sales (full disclosure: the author of this analysis also took part in this sales and purchased these three titles, betraying one's principles while doing so).

Also interesting to note is that Beauty and the Beast: Diamond Edition came out of the Blu-ray exclusive period this week, meaning the DVD-only edition was finally available to purchase by DVD owners. More on that later in the market share section.

Here's the complete top 10 chart is below (new releases in bold, and Blu-ray exclusives are denoted by *):

1. The Expendables
2. Toy Story 3
3. Avatar: Extended Edition
4. A Christmas Carol
5. The Last Airbender
6. Taken
7. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
8. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
9. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
10. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
11. Beauty and the Beast: Diamond Edition

Market Share:

Avatar led this week's market share, but it was about 'long tail' sales this week, with numerous Blu-ray titles all contributing to the relatively high overall market share, and the highest Blu-ray market share for Black Friday week ever.

Blu-ray recorded 12.33% market share in 2009's Black Friday, but this shot up to 16.82%. This may not sound very impressive, but consider that Blu-ray was up against $2 DVDs and the like, and so market share held up remarkably well. This of course is mainly because while $2 Blu-ray movies aren't that numerous yet, we did have many $6 or $7 Blu-ray titles, and this helped to push the market share up compared to last year, where it was difficult to find a Blu-ray hit for under $10.

For the week's sole new release in the top 10 sales charts, The Expendables did reasonably well at 32.49%.

As mentioned previously, Beauty and the Beast came out of Blu-ray exclusivity, and so market share dropped to 21.33% (from 100%, obviously). It's hard to interpret this number. On one hand, it's good because even with so many "pent up" DVD buyers buying this set this week, Blu-ray still managed to hold its own. On the other hand, many DVD buyers may have already purchased the far better value combo pack (and may still be purchasing the combo pack, even when the slightly cheaper DVD-only edition is available). The difference between the 2-disc DVD-only edition and the combo is only $5 on Amazon at the moment, so many may choose to future proof, as opposed to saving the $5 (although they do get an extra DVD worth of extras with the 2-Disc edition, as most of the extras on the combo is on the second Blu-ray disc).

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

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom846672FGM/index.php?startid=13

Year to Year Comparison

The stats for the week ending 29th November 2009 (click to see analysis) are as follows.

Blu-ray vs DVD: 12.33% vs 87.67%

Blu-ray: $69.06 million
DVD: $491.10 million

Comparing the two Black Friday sales, it's clear what has happened. Overall sales were down, due to even more aggressive price reductions, and also the general economic situation, but DVD's large loss was turned into a small, but significant, Blu-ray gain. In other words, DVD is on the down, while Blu-ray is on the up (but that's to be expected, really), but any gains wasn't enough to offset the losses.

Blu-ray sales increased by $14.42m (up 20.88%), while DVD sales decreased by $78.34m (down 15.95%) producing an overall loss of $63.92 million in combined revenue.

Blu-ray's market share increased from 12.33% to 16.82% (a growth of 36.42%).

[admin]

Stats:

For the week ending 5th December 2010, here are the stats:

Percentage of revenue:
Blu-ray vs DVD: 20.17% vs 79.83%

Blu-ray sales total spending: $68.16 million
DVD sales total spending: $269.83 million

You can read the latest digital edition of HMM (December 13 Issue) with the above stats here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom937762PBM/index.php?startid=1

Top 10:

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse was this week's top selling Blu-ray title, outselling The Sorcerer's Apprentice by nearly 2:1.

To coincide with the release of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Disney's Fantasia/Fantasia 2000 Movie Collection came third.

Knight and Day was closely behind in 4th, ensuring all the new releases in the top 10 were in the top 4.

So while revenue dropped from the Black Friday high of last week, overall Blu-ray market share actually improved as bargain DVD buying gave way to Blu-ray new release buying (and still some Blu-ray bargain buying).

Here's the complete top 10 chart is below (new releases in bold, and Blu-ray exclusives are denoted by *):

1. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
2. The Sorcerer's Apprentice
3. Fantasia/Fantasia 2000 Movie Collection
4. Knight and Day
5. The Expendables
6. Avatar: Extended Edition
7. The Dark Knight
8. Toy Story 3
9. A Christmas Carol
10. * The Sound of Music: 45th Anniversary Edition

Market Share:

Batman Begins topped the market share chart with a whopping 82.81% of all sales belong to the Blu-ray version of the movie. Back to the Future: 25th Anniversary Trilogy didn't do too badly either, with 79.25%, despite not being a DVD exclusive.

For the new releases this week, the Fantasia/Fantasia 2000 double pack recorded the highest market share, coming in at 56.9%, joining the rank of first week releases that sold more on Blu-ray than on DVD. This is a very respectable result for the animated title, although the $4 difference between the 2 disc DVD-only version and the 4-disc Blu-ray+DVD combo version may have been key.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice was the next highest new release on the market share charts, with 42.81%.

Knight and Day performed averagely at 29.03, and The Twlight Saga: Eclipse didn't even get into the top 10, coming in at 22.67%.

Overall market share was above 20% again, the 5th time ever this has happened, with 4 of these times coming in 2010.

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

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom937762PBM/index.php?startid=11

Year to Year Comparison

The stats for the week ending 6th December 2009 (click to see analysis) are as follows.

Blu-ray vs DVD: 14.85% vs 85.15%

Blu-ray: $46.80 million
DVD: $268.40 million

HMM has revised their figures for last year *again*, having *again* over-counted the influence of selected stores in their calculations. Fortunately, the changes are minor compared to the one from April. The *new* HMM figures are listed below:

Blu-ray vs DVD: 13.63% vs 86.37%

Blu-ray: $42.35 million
DVD: $268.40 million

Comparing the two post Black Friday weeks, 2010 was much better than 2009. In fact, at over 20% overall market share, this was one of the best weeks in 2010 (the 4th best, to be precise).

Comparing to the *new HMM* stats, Blu-ray sales increased by $25.81m (up 60.94%), while DVD sales increased as well, but by only $1.43m (up 0.53%) producing an overall gain of $27.24 million in combined revenue.

Blu-ray's market share increased from 13.63% to 20.17% (a growth of 47.98%).

[admin]

Stats:

For the week ending 12th December 2010, here are the stats:

Percentage of revenue:
Blu-ray vs DVD: 20.95% vs 79.05%

Blu-ray sales total spending: $94.72 million
DVD sales total spending: $357.37 million

You can read the latest digital edition of HMM (December 20 Issue) with the above stats here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom019982JMX/index.php?startid=1

Top 10:

If I'm not mistaken, then this is the best week Blu-ray has ever had, revenue wise. While market share wasn't a record (the week Avatar was release, back in April, still holds the record), the $94.72 million worth of sales beats the record set almost exactly the same time last year ($86.07 million).

And it wasn't a total surprise as to which title was largely responsible for this record. Inception was the week's top seller, easily outselling last week's number one, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, by a 3.4:1 ratio.

Shrek Forever After was the next highest ranked new release, coming in at 3rd. The Shrek quadrilogy box set, Shrek: The Whole Story, also sold well enough to earn a 6th place finish.

And that was largely it for new releases in the top 10, but with seasonal shopping trends, and Inception, it was all enough to get Blu-ray over the magic $90 million mark. And if last year's any indication, the following week could see even stronger sales.

Here's the complete top 10 chart is below (new releases in bold, and Blu-ray exclusives are denoted by *):

1. Inception
2. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
3. Shrek Forever After
4. Toy Story 3
5. Avatar
6. Shrek: The Whole Story
7. How to Train Your Dragon
8. The Expendables
9. Fantasia/Fantasia 2000 Movie Collection
10. * The Sound of Music: 45th Anniversary Edition

Market Share:

As mentioned earlier, while overall Blu-ray market share did not break any records, it was still the second highest recorded this year, and third highest in history.

Inception's first week market share was at an unbelievable 64.87%, easily making it the movie with the highest first week Blu-ray market share in history. And since Inception was such as huge seller overall, this was largely responsible for the high overall market share figure, as well as the record breaking revenue figures. I've always predicted Inception would be this year's most popular Blu-ray title, after Avatar, because it really is a film best experienced in HD, and it seems consumers are wise to this too. Plus the fact that some retailers, like Wal-Mart, were only pricing the Blu-ray+DVD combo version at a single dollar more than the 2-disc DVD version, may have helped sway buyers into getting the Blu-ray version, and possibly help spur Blu-ray player sales in the process (because with this kind of pricing, it's clear that DVDs are on the way out, and that Blu-ray is now the best value purchase - something you couldn't say about the format this time last year).

The week's other new release, basically Shrek Forever After and the Shrek movie collection, did less well than Inception, with the movie collection coming in at 46.64%, but so far no figures available to me for the standalone version (will update this post when it is available).

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

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom019982JMX/index.php?startid=9

Year to Year Comparison

The stats for the week ending 13th December 2009 (click to see analysis) are as follows.

Blu-ray vs DVD: 13.56% vs 86.44%

Blu-ray: $79.86 million
DVD: $509.12 million

You may notice that this and last week's comparisons do not match up to what is published in Home Media Magazine. This is because HMM has revised their figures for last year *again*, having *again* over-counted the influence of selected stores in their calculations. Fortunately, the changes are minor compared to the one from April (last week's post has been updated). The *new* HMM figures are listed below:

Blu-ray vs DVD: 13.64% vs 86.36%

Blu-ray: $69.97 million
DVD: $442.94 million

Using the new stats, Blu-ray sales increased by $24.75m (up 35.37%), while DVD sales decreased by $85.57m (down 19.32%) producing an overall loss of $60.82 million in combined revenue.

Blu-ray's market share increased from 13.64% to 20.95% (a growth of 53.59%).

[admin]

Two updates, one after the other, due to the holidays. Also, don't be alarmed at the reporting period changes (week ending 18th December instead of 19th December .. this is due to HMM changing their reporting format and bringing the stats up a day earlier). First up is ...

Stats:

For the week ending 18th December 2010, here are the stats:

Percentage of revenue:
Blu-ray vs DVD: 20.63% vs 79.37%

Blu-ray sales total spending: $99 million
DVD sales total spending: $380.90 million

Top 10:

Last week was the best week Blu-ray has ever had, and this week is even better. Revenue wise, it's another record for Blu-ray, and so so close to breaking the $100m barrier (maybe we'll have better luck next week ). Again, market share wasn't a record, but it's still above 20%.

Inception was still doing exceptionally, but it was only the second most popular title of the week. First place goes to Despicable Me, which sold more than twice as many copies of Inception.

Another big hitter was the new The A-Team, which came in third, just above The Other Guys.

The only other new release in the top 10 was next, at 5th, occupied by The Town.

A healthy dose of new releases, plus still strong performances from Inception, Twilght: Eclipse, and Shrek Forever After, all contributed to the record revenue figures being recorded.

Here's the complete top 10 chart is below (new releases in bold, and Blu-ray exclusives are denoted by *):

1. Despicable Me
2. Inception
3. The A-Team
4. The Other Guys
5. The Town
6. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
7. Toy Story 3
8. Avatar
9. * The Sound of Music: 45th Anniversary Edition
10. Shrek Forever After

Market Share:

Inception's market share dropped to just below 50% from the high of the first week of release, but it still bested all of the new releases this week. The Town recorded the highest market share at 46.29%. The A-Team was next, at 41.83%. The Other Guys at 35.66% and Despicable Me came in "lowest" at 29.04%.

All are respectable figures, even Despicable Me, recording near 30% is a good result for an animated title.

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

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/questex/hom311109JFM/index.php?startid=22

Year to Year Comparison

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

Blu-ray vs DVD: 13.83% vs 86.17%

Blu-ray: $86.07 million
DVD: $536.30 million

You may notice that this and last week's comparisons do not match up to what is published in Home Media Magazine. This is because HMM has revised their figures for last year *again*, having *again* over-counted the influence of selected stores in their calculations. Plus the shift in the reporting period (reporting weeks now end on a Saturday, instead of Sunday), this means the stats are further differentiated from what was historically posted. The *new* HMM figures are listed below:

Blu-ray vs DVD: 13.25% vs 86.75%

Blu-ray: $74.38 million
DVD: $487.08 million

Using the new stats, Blu-ray sales increased by $24.62m (up 33.1%), while DVD sales decreased by $106.18m (down 21.8%) producing an overall loss of $81.56 million in combined revenue.

Blu-ray's market share increased from 13.25% to 20.63% (a growth of 55.7%).

[admin]

Second report:

Stats:

For the week ending 25th December 2010, here are the stats:

Percentage of revenue:
Blu-ray vs DVD: 19.72% vs 80.28%

Blu-ray sales total spending: $109.27 million
DVD sales total spending: $444.72 million

Top 10:

Yes, I did know posting the analysis above that Blu-ray had broken the $100m barrier "this" week, which was why my "prediction" was accompanied by a winky smilie.

And so, a historical week for Blu-ray, as revenue breaks the $100m barrier, and by more 9 more million as well (I remember when the entire Blu-ray revenue for the week was less than 9 million!). One can debate the accuracy of HMM's calculation method (the constant revisions don't help), but this result shouldn't be a huge surprise, given the huge discounts being offered to Blu-ray movies at the moment and the fact that hardly anybody even makes or sells DVD players.

Inception bounced back to the top of the sales charts, jumping over last week's number one, Despicable Me. Salt leads this week's new releases in 3rd, but other than Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps in 6th, the top 10 was largely devoid of new releases.

But the recent big releases were enough to push Blu-ray revenue to record levels.

Here's the complete top 10 chart is below (new releases in bold, and Blu-ray exclusives are denoted by *):

1. Inception
2. Despicable Me
3. Salt
4. The Town
5. Toy Story 3
6. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
7. Beauty and the Beast: Diamond Edition
8. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
9. The A-Team
10. The Other Guys

Market Share:

For the new releases, Salt was top of the market share charts at 39%. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps did less well at 31%.

Not in the top 10 sales, but in the top 20, was Family Guy: It's A Trap!, which only came in at 24%, which is somewhat disappointing and surprising (well, to me anyway). I guess animated series aren't necessarily better in HD to most consumers, and the $7 pricing difference (and the Blu-ray version not being a combo) is probably why it did worse than your typical movie.

Year to Year Comparison

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

Blu-ray vs DVD: 21.18% vs 78.82%

Blu-ray: $60.60 million
DVD: $225.51 million

You may notice that this and last week's comparisons do not match up to what is published in Home Media Magazine. This is because HMM has revised their figures for last year *again*, having *again* over-counted the influence of selected stores in their calculations. Plus the shift in the reporting period (reporting weeks now end on a Saturday, instead of Sunday), this means the stats are further differentiated from what was historically posted. The *new* HMM figures are listed below:

Blu-ray vs DVD: 13.61% vs 86.38%

Blu-ray: $76.95 million
DVD: $488.17 million

This is somewhat of a huge change between the original figures and the revised figures, both to revenue figures and market share. HMM revised the figures due to miscalculating the market share of Wal-Mart. So what was once the second highest market share week for Blu-ray has disappeared, but it does fit into the averages for that period more (instead of making that week a statistical anomaly), so we'll have to hope that the revision makes the figures more accurate (until the next revision!)

Anyway ... using the new stats, Blu-ray sales increased by $32.32m (up 42%), while DVD sales decreased by $43.45m (down 8.9%) producing an overall loss of $11.13 million in combined revenue.

Blu-ray's market share increased from 13.61% to 19.72% (a growth of 44.89%).

[admin]

Just a reminder of the slightly changed format of HMM stats from now on. The revenue figures end on a day earlier than the top sellers/market share stats (since they're from separate sources), and so there's some mismatch between the data, but not enough to make a huge difference as one is a Saturday, and the other is a Sunday, not dates when new titles are usually released. And due to the release schedule of the magazine, revenue stats are available on the Home Media Magazine website a week earlier than published in the digital edition of the magazine.

Stats:

For the week ending 1st January 2011, here are the stats:

Percentage of revenue:
Blu-ray vs DVD: 22% vs 78%

Blu-ray sales total spending: $51.24 million
DVD sales total spending: $181.71 million

These stats available from here:

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/

(direct link to stats: http://www.homemediamagazine.com/sit...rch-011711.jpg)

Top 10:

Inception bounced back to the number one spot this week, as Resident Evil: Afterlife did not do enough to beat Inception to number one.

And, since this was the last week of 2010, that was pretty much the only new release in the top 10. And so, there's nothing much else to really talk about here, other than The A-Team bouncing back into the top 3, and Beauty and the Beast sales remaining strong going into the last week of 2010.

Here's the complete top 10 chart is below (new releases in bold, and Blu-ray exclusives are denoted by *):

1. Inception
2. Resident Evil: Afterlife
3. The A-Team
4. The Town
5. The Expendables
6. Despicable Me
7. Salt
8. The Other Guys
9. Beauty and the Beast: Diamond Edition
10. Toy Story 3

Market Share:

At 22%, this was the second highest week ever in terms of market share for Blu-ray, although with the HMM stat adjustments, it could even be the highest, who know!

Whether it broke records or not, it was still high, thanks largely to the 70.72% market share for Beauty and the Beast, which led the charts, and a strong 44.24% market share for the latest instalment in the Resident Evil saga.

Overall, there were 8 titles that managed to get over the 50% mark, meaning more Blu-ray versions of titles like Avatar, The Expendables, Iron Man 2, Grown Ups ... were sold than their DVD counterparts.

Year to Year Comparison

The stats for the week ending 3rd January 2010 (click to see analysis) are as follows.

Blu-ray vs DVD: 14.92% vs 85.08%

Blu-ray: $37.72 million
DVD: $215.13 million

You may notice that this and last week's comparisons do not match up to what is published in Home Media Magazine. This is because HMM has revised their figures for last year *again*, having *again* over-counted the influence of selected stores in their calculations. Plus the shift in the reporting period (reporting weeks now end on a Saturday, instead of Sunday), this means the stats are further differentiated from what was historically posted. The *new* HMM figures are listed below (this is the last time that the previously published stats, seen above, will be posted - from now on, only the revised and time shifted historical stats, shown below, will be posted):

Blu-ray vs DVD: 14.52% vs 85.48%

Blu-ray: $35.88 million
DVD: $211.29 million

The difference between the previously published figures, and the new revised figures, are small enough to be negligible this week.

Using the new stats, Blu-ray sales increased by $15.36m (up 42.81%), while DVD sales decreased by $29.58m (down 14%) producing an overall loss of $14.22 million in combined revenue.

Blu-ray's market share increased from 14.52% to 22% (a growth of 51.52%).

So Blu-ray and DVD sales ended 2010 pretty much with the same trend that has prevailed throughout the entire year - that while DVD shrank, Blu-ray grew, but not by enough to prevent a combined loss, although the losses appear to be shrinking. Blu-ray market share is also growing.

[admin]

Stats:

For the week ending 8th January 2011, here are the stats:

Percentage of revenue:
Blu-ray vs DVD: 19.56% vs 80.44%

Blu-ray sales total spending: $29.40 million
DVD sales total spending: $120.91 million

These stats available from here:

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/

(direct link to stats: http://www.homemediamagazine.com/sit...rch-012411.jpg)

Top 10:

The week's top selling Blu-ray movie was Machete. This kept last week's top new release, Resident Evil: Afterlife in second place.

As for the week's other new releases in the top 10, Dinner for Schmucks was 5th and The Last Exorcism was 9th.

For DVD sales, this was one of the lowest weeks on record for recent times, and this contributed to the relatively high Blu-ray market share for this week.

Here's the complete top 10 chart is below (new releases in bold, and Blu-ray exclusives are denoted by *):

1. Machete
2. Resident Evil: Afterlife
3. Inception
4. Despicable Me
5. Dinner for Schmucks
6. Salt
7. The Town
8. The A-Team
9. The Last Exorcism
10. Avatar

Market Share:

Blu-ray market share stayed just under 20%.

For this week's new releases, Machete managed 40.69%, followed by The Last Exorcism at 30%. Dinner for Schmucks managed 25%.

Taken was the week's top Blu-ray title in terms of market share, with 76.12% of sales belong to the HD format.

Year to Year Comparison

The stats for the week ending 9th January 2010 are as follows (you can see stats and analysis for the week ending 10th January 2010 here - note that data has since been revised, and the reporting period has changed as well, but this historical data is still useful for comparison purposes).

Blu-ray vs DVD: 14.16% vs 85.83%

Blu-ray: $24.79 million
DVD: $150.20 million

Blu-ray sales increased by $4.61m (up 18.6%), while DVD sales decreased by $29.29m (down 19.5%) producing an overall loss of $24.68 million in combined revenue.

Blu-ray's market share increased from 14.16% to 19.56% (a growth of 38.14%).