NPD numbers confirmed

[sodrock]

Good Ol' Bill Hunt!!

http://www.twice.com/article/CA6524995.html

By Greg Tarr -- TWICE, 1/23/2008 9:40:00 AM

Port Washington, N.Y. — Market research firm The NPD Group today confirmed numbers sent to members last week showing Blu-ray Disc player sales accounted for 90 percent of dedicated HD disc player unit sales and dollar volume during the week ending Jan. 12, but the firm wasn’t ready to declare a trend resulting from Warner Bros.’ HD DVD defection.


Several media outlets leaked the sales numbers Wednesday without confirmation from NPD, executives from the firm told TWICE. This publication received the same numbers from unnamed sources, but elected to wait to release the data until NPD could verify its accuracy and provide perspective.


NPD, which broke from policy to comment on its weekly share data, confirmed that dedicated HD DVD player share dropped suddenly compared to dedicated Blu-ray models the week ending Jan. 12, after being only slightly ahead of HD DVD the week ending Jan. 5. Video game consoles were not part of the study.


According to retail point-of-sale data (sell-through to consumers) that NPD would release publicly for the week ending Jan. 12, Blu-ray player sales accounted for 90 percent of unit and dollar share, compared with 7 percent unit share and 4 percent dollar share for HD DVD players. The remaining share went to Blu-ray/HD DVD combo players.


Leading brands in the category during that period were: Sony (34 percent unit share, 32 percent dollar share); Panasonic (27 percent unit share, 30 percent dollar share), Sharp (23 percent unit share, 22 percent dollar share), Toshiba (7 percent unit share, 4 percent dollar share), Samsung (6 percent unit share, 6 percent dollar share) and LG (2 percent unit share, 4 percent dollar share).


NPD attributed the results largely to promotions run by several Blu-ray supporting manufacturers, and said they were not necessarily the result of reaction to the news that Warner Bros. would be dropping support of HD DVD to go exclusively with Blu-ray in May.


“We’ve been doing weekly data for a long time, and we often times will see big shifts in sales for one week that doesn’t necessarily determine a trend,” Stephen Baker, NPD Group industry analysis VP, told TWICE. “There were some promotions in the marketplace during that week with Sharp and Sony bundling Blu-ray players with televisions — it seems to me unlikely that consumers would have made that kind of a choice that quickly based on new reports of Warner Bros. shifting from Blu-ray and HD DVD to Blu-ray exclusively.”