Home Media Research weekly sales figures & other software sales data

[Terjyn]

Originally Posted by Elandyll

The pdm chart shows a High School Musical -2- in 17th position. Is that a mistake, or was there a promo on that title on BR ?

If it is HSM3, it would be a very good score for the format imo.

It's probably just the effect of new Blu-Ray owners buying 2 to go with 3, whereas most people who wanted the DVD already had it.

[Anthony P]

Funny experiment. I guess you work in marketing :-)

no, I work in IT, but I do have my degree in Math and I hate it when people misuse numbers

As I understand it P1-P3 is the closest to my chart and show almost the same numbers.

not sure what you mean by closest and same numbers. P1-P5 all use exactly the same numbers just shifted differently, the reason for the graph was to show the obvious, that in an emerging market if M=Month M <<M +12 (same month 1 year later) so if M or M+12 falls in the interval it will affect the final result by the difference between M and M12 (i.e. if M+12 is 3x M sales then the difference by shifting that one month would be equal to adding 2 more of what M sold).

Do you mean month wise Jan(P3)->fake April (P2) is just 1month off the difference between Mar (DVD) -> June (BD) so we could use it as a base to correct for the difference due to a later launch? If so
1) That was Fake April, right? If DVD launched in April the numbers would have been different
2) disk sales are very different then player sales (you buy a player every few years, some people buy several disks every week), I would assume with disk sales the numbers would be more skewed
3) all months are not the same, I moved the definition of year because it makes it easy to show that jut a shift at the beginning will show a difference over the whole growth period but in a real condition (like BD vs DVD) it will be much more pronounced and complicated. Dec is the most important month , Q1 is big, the summer are the deadest months (people think escape, vacation and enjoying the sun not locking themselves in the basement). The issue is that growth grows organically, for example I bought my BD player in 2006, my Sister and her family saw it (and the PS3) when they came for Christmas, then again when hey came for Easter, then for fathers day and that was when my Bil decided that he wanted a PS3 and we went out and he bought it.

Thats a very good argument to not use absolut sale number since they are not complete. Since my chart use market share. (as all data in this thread, just look at the title) it really does not matter if its not cover every shop. (before the elecation they did not need to ask all americans to have a poll showing that Barack was gonna win)

why would you assume market share would be more precise? http://www.nielsen.com/solutions/videoscan.html We know VS does not have Walmart, and that it is the biggest retailer of movies. On the other hand we also know that they include smaller places like grocery stores and pharmacies and other places that just have DVDs at this time. How are BDs selling at Walmart, I have no idea but unless it is exactly the same as VSs numbers then the market % would change, I also don’t know what % the DVD only represent and even though they should be counted with VS only looking at around 60% of the market they will tend to be over

Now as for Obama if polsters decided only to poll like people in the southern states or people that don’t border large boddies of water (pacific, Atlantic, Greate lakes) then the results would have been different and wrong, I am not saying the numbers are as biased as those examples (for the obvious reason that for the most part it is not all red or all blue with movie retailers and the ones that are all red would be smaller and count for less then the retailers that sell both), but we know that VS is biased by retailer and not all retailers are the same. For the most part (comparing one DVD or BD title to an other) it should not matter but it can matter enough to make a few % points difference in your chart

The data in the chart is collected from this thread and videobusiness and it is the data available in the market. I think the data is "as good as it gets".

agree, the issue is not the data but what you do with it, They show how a large chunk of the market is behaving now, and for that it is extremely interesting since on the small scale (week to week, month to month) they should not change a lot . But let’s say next week WM advertises that they have a sale on BDs and every BD is 10$, those numbers that week would be useless since most likely a lot more BDs would sell then usual but many that buy at BB or Amazon or other places that use VS would just disappear and so VS would say sales are down. But when you try and compare it to numbers 10 years earlier and from a different source it is like deciding a lime is not ripe because it is still green while a lemon is yellow.

[RustyK94]

Originally Posted by Blu Titan

Body of Lies is not a movie with strong appeal to the majority of PS3 owners, yet it achieved 20% of total sales from Blu-ray. Meaning more standalone players are been sold, and people are enjoying the quality.

I think the whole PS3 demographic governing how a title fairs on Blu-ray at this stage is now obsolete.

Body of Lies shows what's ahead this year. That's Blu-ray breaking the 25% mark.

At the moment it's turd season and turds don't sell well on a as up till now premium priced format. But i can see come even early as September Blu-ray pushing a good 25%.

This will lead the way to price cuts and better sales figures come this time next year in turd season.

[Terjyn]

Freddy, let me ask you a question.

Blu-Ray standalone player sales have outpaced DVDs by almost 2-1. (NOT including the PS3).
Blu-Ray got to a 1 million seller faster.
Blu-Ray will get to a 2 million seller *much* faster(assuming the Dark Knight is not already there).
Blu-Ray got to a 1 million in week 1 sales total *much* faster as well.
Given this, explain HOW Blu-Ray is doing so poorly in market share comparison per your chart.

Most people know the answer, but for some reason you blindly cling to your chart as if it's gospel, and blow off any criticism of it, no matter how valid.

[freddylinni]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

Do you mean month wise Jan(P3)->fake April (P2) is just 1month off the difference between Mar (DVD) -> June (BD) so we could use it as a base to correct for the difference due to a later launch?

I meant month wise yes.

Originally Posted by Anthony P

all months are not the same, I moved the definition of year because it makes it easy to show that jut a shift at the beginning will show a difference over the whole growth period but in a real condition (like BD vs DVD) it will be much more pronounced and complicated. Dec is the most important month , Q1 is big, the summer are the deadest months (people think escape, vacation and enjoying the sun not locking themselves in the basement).

Yes. Totally agree that the skeew would have been more important if DVD was launched november 1. and BD februar 1.
Thats why I belive this skeew is not important. Skeewing BD numbers 3 months would be more misleading since Q1 is so much more important than Q2.
And I guess you agree that if Samsungs shitty player (I had it for 4 weeks before I returned it) was launces in march it would not matter that much. PS3 is a so much bigger factor the first year than any release date.
Because I belive you would agree that release of Samsung in march 2006 and PS3 in 2009 (as PS2 for DVD) would be a loss for BD in market share.

Originally Posted by Anthony P

why would you assume market share would be more precise?

- Market Size changes
- The number of shops differs
- The share of the market that is part of the numbers change.

I think using absolute sales numbers really is wrong. (if you dont use it to calculate market share)

Example: If 2009 becomes a shitty movie year (no good movies at all, and everbody loses their job). And because of that sales of movies drops with 50%. I think it would not be fair to say that BD does bad becuase it only sold 20 million discs when DVD did sell 50 million discs for comparable year. Then it much better to look at market share since that will look at market size and realize that BD is doing very well since DVD sales drop the same or more. (as it is doing now)

Of course all data could been better and more complete (like mass destruction weapon info for Bush), but we just have to use what we have and use it the best way possible.

Originally Posted by Anthony P

agree, the issue is not the data but what you do with it,

Again. I am not using the data in any other way than offical BD information comparing year 1997=2006, 1998=2007, 1999=2008 and so on. Of course for argument sake the samsung should have been launced march 20. instead of june 20. but i think we can ignore it, and as times goes the 3 month difference will not matter at all.

Dont you think the Blu-Ray companies not would have used that type of comparison if they thought it was wrong. I assume they are professional marketing people.

Agains thanks for using so much time on trying to figure out a way to use the data better. It's fun to trying to understand the market forces.

[freddylinni]

Originally Posted by Terjyn

Freddy, let me ask you a question.

Blu-Ray standalone player sales have outpaced DVDs by almost 2-1. (NOT including the PS3).
Blu-Ray got to a 1 million seller faster.
Blu-Ray will get to a 2 million seller *much* faster(assuming the Dark Knight is not already there).
Blu-Ray got to a 1 million in week 1 sales total *much* faster as well.
Given this, explain HOW Blu-Ray is doing so poorly in market share comparison per your chart.

I am not sure how you can say its doing so poorly. BD doing very well indeed.
But assuming your argument is correct the following could be an explenation of this: (I am not saying this is the truth but just explenations)

- DVD can be played on BD players
- The prices difference is larger between BD and DVD making people choose DVD more than the same price difference made them buy VHS
- The numbers of available BD is much smaller than it was for DVD at the same time.
- The avarge person not buying BD is much more movie lover than the avarage person not buying DVD at the same time.
- The numbers of DVD available now is much larger than VHS for the same time

Does this match with your answer?

Originally Posted by Terjyn

Most people know the answer, but for some reason you blindly cling to your chart as if it's gospel, and blow off any criticism of it, no matter how valid.

I think some people dislike what they read of it, not if its correct or not. I understand you think the chart shows that BD is dooing poorly. I can assure you it dont. BD is only 4% after for year 3 and thinking about the crisis and format war, that is really good numbers. For year 4 its to early to say, but the growth is so much bigger for BD than DVD for year 2-3 so many think it will pass DVD this year.

[Anthony P]

Yes. Totally agree that the skeew would have been more important if DVD was launched november 1. and BD februar 1.
Thats why I belive this skeew is not important. Skeewing BD numbers 3 months would be more misleading since Q1 is so much more important than Q2.

yes it would be more important, but it does not mean that the difference is un important even P1, P2, P3 had a significant and visible difference

And I guess you agree that if Samsungs shitty player (I had it for 4 weeks before I returned it) was launces in march it would not matter that much. PS3 is a so much bigger factor the first year than any release date.
Because I belive you would agree that release of Samsung in march 2006 and PS3 in 2009 (as PS2 for DVD) would be a loss for BD in market share.

I agree that the PS3 was an early and important player, but I disagree with the rest
1) everyone knew the PS3 would come out soon and have BD capabilities so it made the perfect first BD player, if it did not exist do you think everyone that bought a PS3 would have waited on the side lines?

2) The Samsung is not a good player, but if it came out in March I would have bought in March (or an other BD player) and my collection of movies would have been much larger by the end of the year, also my sister and her family would have seen it at Easter, at fathers day, Canada day weekend, labour day weekend and so maybe my Bil would have bought a BD player for Christmas 2006 instead of getting it fathers day 2007. The quality of the Samsung did deter a bit and that was why I held out until late Sept. before I gave up and got it (I looked in July -launch for Canada and could not find a player in Montreal, then enjoyed summer, then heard that it needed a FW, then waited for fix, then got tired of waiting for Pany/Sony/Pioneer and got one.). Do you think the numbers for DVD (or BD) go up due to "fancy" devices? it is popularity, it is "wow that looks cool, I think I will get it" that is why a few months makes a significant difference.

- Market Size changes
- The number of shops differs
- The share of the market that is part of the numbers change.

OK, you misunderstood what I said. Yes market share vs actual numbers are better (for the reasons you specified), that was not my point. I showed that some pegged BD@750M and others at 900M for last year, your response was that using market share it should not matter if there is difference of opinion.

But for your arguments, one, if they so felt could be talking of the uselessness of market share for this job. After all, before DVD came out (let's say early 90's) there wasn't a VHS sales market. VHS was still mostly rental by the time DVD came around and people would more likely be on the cutting edge of both or neither.

but i think we can ignore it, and as times goes the 3 month difference will not matter at all.

so you look at the chart I posted you see P1 (or P2) and compare it to P3, did the gap go down over time? NO, it stayed the same/got bigger as long as DVD was in growth only when growth reached its peak (around year 7) did P1 and P2 even out.

Dont you think the Blu-Ray companies not would have used that type of comparison if they thought it was wrong. I assume they are professional marketing people.

charts are used for different reasons. I don't know what BD companies use or who they are. But even at that I think the same tool in an informed hand compared to an uninformed one makes a difference. When you first posted those graphs that you made you used them as the reason why BD is not doing as well as DVD did. Obviously you where using these graphs/data to jump to the wrong conclusion. Hell your original graph was much worst and it had a straight line for BD based on the 2006 & 2007.

I don't care if BD companies (or others) are run by idiots and think that this type of graph would be an accurate representation and that it means BD is doing worst. But if I see something is FUD and tends to mislead others I do speak out about it.

[freddylinni]

Originally Posted by Anthony P

I agree that the PS3 was an early and important player, but I disagree with the rest
1) everyone knew the PS3 would come out soon and have BD capabilities so it made the perfect first BD player, if it did not exist do you think everyone that bought a PS3 would have waited on the side lines?

No, of course not. For people buying it as a BD player it would dont matter much but for people buying it mainly as a gaming console it would.

Originally Posted by Anthony P

2) The Samsung is not a good player, but if it came out in March I would have bought in March (or an other BD player) and my collection of movies would have been much larger by the end of the year

Yes, but would buying in march or june affect how many BD movies you buy the following years. My theory is no for most people. If anything negative since you already would have bought some catalogue titles the first year you did not need to buy the following year.

Originally Posted by Anthony P

, also my sister and her family would have seen it at Easter, at fathers day, Canada day weekend, labour day weekend and so maybe my Bil would have bought a BD player for Christmas 2006 instead of getting it fathers day 2007.

Again I dont believe that would affect how many movies they are buying in 2008, 2009 and so on. After some time every potensial buyer are aware of the product. Just look at MP3 players penetration. I really dont think that at this time there would be a big differnce in market share for MP3 if the first player had been relased 3 months later.

Originally Posted by Anthony P

OK, you misunderstood what I said. Yes market share vs actual numbers are better (for the reasons you specified)

Good. Then we agree on that.

Originally Posted by Anthony P

so you look at the chart I posted you see P1 (or P2) and compare it to P3, did the gap go down over time? NO, it stayed the same/got bigger as long as DVD was in growth only when growth reached its peak (around year 7) did P1 and P2 even out.

Your experiment does only show that comparing one time periode with another there will be difference. It will always be that way since buying of products is not linear and have different growth. It does not show that number of people owning product A in january 1. year x would be significant different becuse of 3 months sleew on relese date. I think you agree on that. I addition my chart shows market share that is not affected by the total market size.

Originally Posted by Anthony P

charts are used for different reasons. I don't know what BD companies use or who they are.

The Blu-Ray promotion group (all BD companies) used for example this chart to compare BD growth to DVD growth on a official BD press conferance on a electronics exhibit. This show that they accept the time periods.


I also think this report Agree
http://www.videobusiness.com/article/CA6627903.html

Originally Posted by Anthony P

But even at that I think the same tool in an informed hand compared to an uninformed one makes a difference.

Totally Agree. Thats why I really wonder why arent anybody else creating a chart comparing sofware sales. (since they do it with hardware)
I understand you are a smart guy with lot of opions on this subject. I suggest you create a chart.

To sum my understanding of your opinon:
1. You belive that market share is better than number of sold movies to compare how BD is taking over the market against how DVD was taking over the market.
2. The data I use are as "good as it gets" (at least publicly avaiable)
3. You think that if BD would been relesed march 20. instead of june 20 2006 the market share for 2008 and all the following years would be signifcant higher.

Bottom Line. I agree that if will have some small effect the first years, but it is not possible to compare it in another way that is more correct. (as I can think of)

But I think we should stop boring this thread with this discussion.

[freddylinni]

I have updated the weekly chart. Since they are comparing the numbers with 2008 it is now possible to calculate the missing numbers for 2008 and the chart now start in february 2008 instead of april 2008.

I also added release date for Dark Knight and Iron man to show how they affect the sales in the week afters.

[Anthony P]

Yes, but would buying in march or june affect how many BD movies you buy the following years. My theory is no for most people. If anything negative since you already would have bought some catalogue titles the first year you did not need to buy the following year.

no, it would affect a lot the first year but after that it is irrelevant. The issue is that I am not that important. On the other hand in mid 2007 one of my Bils got a BD player, a few months later so did my second Bil, at the end of 2007 a co- worker bought a BD player, then two more in 2008, then in late 2008 one of my drinking buddies got a BD player. So far I don't know if anyone I know got a BD player in 2009. But if I got my BD layer earlier maybe some of these other people would have bought a BD player earlier and so they would have influenced 2007 or 2008 numbers. For Christmas 2008 all my 3 nephews exchanged BD movies amongst themselves, I went with my dad and helped him pick a movie for each of them, that is 9 movies just there but maybe if they had their BD player earlier in 2007 they might have bought a few movies on BD for Christmas 2007. Do you think the numbers keep growing (relatively speaking) each day because I am buying more movies, no but as the word gets out more people are buying players and joining the ranks of BD owners. That is the definition of penetration.

Again I dont believe that would affect how many movies they are buying in 2008, 2009 and so on. After some time every potensial buyer are aware of the product. Just look at MP3 players penetration. I really dont think that at this time there would be a big differnce in market share for MP3 if the first player had been relased 3 months later

DL is not a good example even today it is still not at 50% of the market. it has slow growth, but if you have the monthly numbers from something like Apple do the test yourself and chances are that there would be a difference. Like I said, I used players which might not be completely correct as an analogy but until year 7 there was a difference and even very noticeable depending on the date used.

Your experiment does only show that comparing one time periode with another there will be difference. It will always be that way since buying of products is not linear and have different growth. It does not show that number of people owning product A in january 1. year x would be significant different becuse of 3 months sleew on relese date. I think you agree on that. I addition my chart shows market share that is not affected by the total market size.

but why do you think that? it is not an experiment but an example based on mathematical fact. When they say BD sales grew 300% do you think that happened on one day? each month grew around 300% from the month before, it was not a one time deal. That growth should more or less be evenly distributed yes for some it might be 250% and for others 400% based on sales and time of year and other factors but none of the months will be the same as the previous year at this point in time. So if the 8th month falls in Y1 or Y2 and the 20th month (12 months later) falls in Y2 or Y3 it will make a difference because if M8 falls in Y1 then M20 falls in Y2 (like DVD) and if M8 falls in Y2 (like BD) then M20 falls in Y3. and since M8<M20 whatever M8 is (be it Oct for DVD or Jan for BD) it disadvantages whom ever has M8 instead of M20 and the same will be true for M32 and M44 all the way until Mx~M(x+12) and that will only happen once the format has reached maturity (i.e. as far as it can go)

Totally Agree. Thats why I really wonder why arent anybody else creating a chart comparing sofware sales. (since they do it with hardware)

I am guessing several reasons
1) since hardware penetration > for BD then DVD there is no way anyone can misunderstand what it shows (but I consider that chart just as useless as yours)
2) if you look at the sales numbers for HW and movies you will see a big difference which is the big difference between the two markets

let me explain.

Let's say we have 4 fictional stores in the same neighbourhood called,
a)Anthony's Movie store
b)Bob's Movie store
Y) Yan's movie players
X) Xavier's Movie players

Sony comes out with a new BD player so Y and X order 10 devices, eventualy they will sell them over the long life of the model number so they don't care -and like every store if they have more of those players they will push that one. So Sony sold 20 players and they are assumed to be sold to customers because this should be the last Sony saw of them.

Sony comes out with a new movie A and B order 100 copies each, A and B want to make sure they have enough copies because most of the sales happen the first week. A sells 90 copies the first week but because B is a bit more expensive and people shop around they only sold 10 copies the first week. A few weeks have passed A has since ordered 20 more since all 100 sold out but B sold only 30 of their original order of 100. Since they do not want 70 copies of a movie that is not selling well for them they ship 50 copies back to get their $ back (their agreement says they can send back up to 50% of any order X weeks later)

If you look at all the charts you see they are for shipped units and those numbers are right (i.e. Pany knows exactly how many players they shipped last week) and they don’t care for sold to consumers because sold to retailer means that it will eventually reach the consumer. On the other hand for movies shipped is less used because it is less important. Maybe the stores thought it would be popular but it was “only worth a rent” for many or “we saw it at the theatre and we don’t care about seeing it again” or maybe like my example the title sold OK but not at that outlet, so it was returned and so WB does not care if they shipped 2M copies if only 20% sold and they will get many returns in a few weeks.

I understand you are a smart guy with lot of opions on this subject. I suggest you create a chart

They are not opinions, but why would I create a chart that I know would just mislead people? If I had reliable info and the chart could be used to help people get better info (like the one I posted with P1-P5 or the table which created top 20 BD/DVD) then I might do it, but why would I create a chart that would just lead to misunderstanding and misinformation?

[Maximus]

A perfect storm of factors pushed some of the biggest hits of the 2008 holiday season back to the top of the national home video sales chart the week ended March 1.

Leading the charge: Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment’s Wall-E, which shot back to No. 1 on the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert sales chart, and Warner’s The Dark Knight, which finished at No. 2.

The oldies also fared well on the Blu-ray Disc format. Paramount’s Iron Man, released last September, was No. 2, right behind the recently released Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, also distributed by Paramount. The Dark Knight was No. 4, and Wall-E was No. 5.

Oldies Dominate the Charts

Looks like 10-13% this week...

[Steven_qt]

Looks like you were off by a few percentages Max. (Nice pic, BTW)








Link: http://www.homemediamagazine.com/

[Grubert]

Nice find, Steven. Now we don't have to wait for the magazine to come up on Friday.

A strange week indeed, as explains TK Arnold:

Target Stores, one of the country’s leading sellers of DVDs and Blu-ray Discs, had a huge price promotion on year-end hits during the week, selling many top titles for about $10. At the same time, Circuit City was in the final throes of a liquidation sale. Throw in the lack of any hot new theatrical blockbuster, and it’s an easy stretch to see these oldies but goodies climb their way back to the top.

Nice to see Akira in the BD charts.

[Blu Titan]

Strange week indeed as far as the sales results been released so early.

[NutsAboutPS3]

I'm puzzled by the latest data - The Dark Knight only sold 5% of discs as Blu-ray compared to DVD, whereas according to Grubert's table it had been running at more like 30%. Why have people suddenly shifted their preference towards DVD?

"Target Stores, one of the country’s leading sellers of DVDs and Blu-ray Discs, had a huge price promotion on year-end hits during the week, selling many top titles for about $10" <-- is this referring to DVD or Blu-ray titles being sold for $10?

[Grubert]

Originally Posted by NutsAboutPS3

I'm puzzled by the latest data - The Dark Knight only sold 5% of discs as Blu-ray compared to DVD, whereas according to Grubert's table it had been running at more like 30%. Why have people suddenly shifted their preference towards DVD?

"Target Stores, one of the country’s leading sellers of DVDs and Blu-ray Discs, had a huge price promotion on year-end hits during the week, selling many top titles for about $10" <-- is this referring to DVD or Blu-ray titles being sold for $10?

You're answering your own question. Several titles were on sale on DVD:

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/dvd-bargain...28-2009-a.html

How else was Sex and the City going to jump from #55 to #8 on the overall top 20?

[Maximus]

Didn't realise the extent of DVD special offers!

Well, the Blu-rays will probably go on offer sometime soon if DVDs are.

[mapledragon]

Originally Posted by Grubert

You're answering your own question. Several titles were on sale on DVD:

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/dvd-bargain...28-2009-a.html

How else was Sex and the City going to jump from #55 to #8 on the overall top 20?

Usually when DVDs go on the $10 bin, they don't factor in, but TDK and SexAndTheCity are likely collectibles for the right crowd, and it's enough to get a lot of interest at the right price.

We saw a large jump on IronMan on BD when they did a sale a few weeks ago.

[NutsAboutPS3]

Originally Posted by Grubert

You're answering your own question. Several titles were on sale on DVD:

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/dvd-bargain...28-2009-a.html

How else was Sex and the City going to jump from #55 to #8 on the overall top 20?

I was just confused because $10 seems expensive for a DVD, e.g. Sex and The City can be had for £5 in the UK, but perhaps DVDs don't typically fall in price in the US as quickly as they do in the UK.

[freddylinni]

Nice to have the numbers on a thursday :-)

I have updated the weekly chart, and week for last year at same time has also been updated.

I also have added a chart showing yearly market share increase. This week it was 2,9% market share increase (percentage points)