NPD Confirms Huge Blu-ray Share Jump

[dustin410]

(TWICE) _ PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y. " Market research firm The NPD Group confirmed numbers sent to members earlier this month 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 last 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 precipitously compared to dedicated Blu-ray models during 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 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."

Typically, Baker emphasized, big swings in market share are the result of major promotions.

Commenting on the numbers, Jodi Sally, Toshiba Digital A/V Group marketing VP said: "We all know that it is not accurate to make long-term assumptions based on one week of sales. In fact, putting it into perspective, during that specific week, it's important to recognize that the instant rebate promotions that had previously netted our players' manufacturer's suggested retail prices (MSRPs) to $199 and $249, had actually ended on Jan. 5 " causing an increase in our MSRPs back to $299 and $399.

"Since Toshiba's retail price move on Jan. 13 to $149/$199 " we are seeing very positive sales results at retail," she continued. "All of our consumer research and our experience indicates that retail price is the primary motivating factor in consumers' purchasing habits and we are confident that Toshiba's HD DVD players represent a significant value to the consumer."

But Andy Parsons, Blu-ray Disc Association Promotions Committee chairman and Pioneer Electronics USA new product development senior VP, respectfully disagreed with NPD's assessment of the results: "If [running successful promotions] were that easy, don't they think we would have done it a long time ago? It's not like we haven't tried it before " It may be true that the promotions helped, but we believe everyone has gotten the message quite clearly through the press, and Blu-ray has taken a huge jump forward from the Warner announcement."

The sales data was gathered from NPD's Leader Panel of High Definition Retailers, which does not include point-of-sale data from Wal-Mart, NPD confirmed, although some industry observers told TWICE that Wal-Mart was probably not a big factor in the sales of HD disc players during that period.

According to NPD, for full-year 2007 HD DVD player sales accounted for 49 percent of unit share and 37 percent of dollar share, while Blu-ray Disc players accounted for 49 percent unit share and 58 percent dollar share. Dual-format players accounted for 2 percent of unit share and 5 percent of dollar share.

http://hd.broadcastnewsroom.com/arti....jsp?id=291403


Didn't see it posted. Sorry if it is. It's long, but it's a good read.

[dustin410]

Many were quick to claim that HD DVD was dead when the NPD group's numbers showed Blu-ray players had a 93 percent share the week after Warner's announcement. While those numbers were staggering, those with a level head wanted to wait to see if the blue camp could keep it up, and now according to the same firm, it did not. In fact the very next week sales were back to where we'd grown to expect them, about 65 percent Blu. As interesting as these numbers are -- as many have pointed out in the past -- Amazon and other online retailers are not included, and we all know how popular HD DVD players are on Amazon. While at the same time Blu fans would argue that many buy the PS3 as a Blu-ray player, which is also not counted in the study. Regardless, the better metric for the success of a packaged media format is media sales and with two weeks at about 84 percent and almost no decent red titles in sight, we'd be surprised if Blu victory in that court didn't continue.

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/01/29...were-no-trend/

What kind of crap is this? In the post above, they say blu ray has made a huge leap. Now the same group says otherwise? Bullsh!t.

[york weir]

Originally Posted by dustin410

What kind of crap is this? In the post above, they say blu ray has made a huge leap. Now the same group says otherwise? Bullsh!t.

Looking at hard numbers Blu-ray sold about 6000 less players while HD DVD sold roughly 5000 more than the previous week.

[JAGUAR1977]

65-35 was not the norm for standalones, HD-DVD had a significant advantage until recently, this site also fails to mention the 50%+ price cuts for HD-DVD hardware!

Posted for amusement:-

Truth Teller
@ Jan 29th 2008 10:46AM
Movie sales will come later, tapping the pool of HD DVD owners with deals etc etc is the job for later.

The big deal now is to get the hardware out there and create that huge pool of HD DVD owners.

They are doing this very very nicely right now.

(and the Blu-ray fanboys know it which is why they whine & bash at every chance they get)

[RUR]

Originally Posted by york weir

Looking at hard numbers Blu-ray sold about 6000 less players while HD DVD sold roughly 5000 more than the previous week.

To repeat myself from another thread:

Originally Posted by RUR

If we set-aside the perhaps atypical week following the Warner announcement, Blu-ray sales are actually up by 8%, while HD DVD sales are down by ~41%, despite the dramatic prices cuts on their players:

Week Blu-ray HD DVD
1/5 15,257 14,558
1/12 21,770 1,758
1/19 16,496 8,639

[dobyblue]

Originally Posted by dustin410

As interesting as these numbers are -- as many have pointed out in the past -- Amazon and other online retailers are not included, and we all know how popular HD DVD players are on Amazon.

Bollocks!!!!

http://www.gamedaily.com/articles/ne...me-data/18586/

"In any given year, we typically add a few retailers and lose one or two," explained Martin Zagorsek, Vice President, Games & Software at The NPD Group. "This year both the adds (e.g. amazon.com) and the losses (Toys R Us) were a bit larger than usual, but overall our market coverage has not changed very much compared to last year."

He added, "Also, since the retailers we've added are actually increasing in importance and share, we feel that our data accuracy may improve rather than deteriorate due to these changes."

(Credit to Grubert for finding this link)

[dalejrfanfreak]

Originally Posted by dustin410

Many were quick to claim that HD DVD was dead when the NPD group's numbers showed Blu-ray players had a 93 percent share the week after Warner's announcement. While those numbers were staggering, those with a level head wanted to wait to see if the blue camp could keep it up, and now according to the same firm, it did not. In fact the very next week sales were back to where we'd grown to expect them, about 65 percent Blu. As interesting as these numbers are -- as many have pointed out in the past -- Amazon and other online retailers are not included, and we all know how popular HD DVD players are on Amazon. While at the same time Blu fans would argue that many buy the PS3 as a Blu-ray player, which is also not counted in the study. Regardless, the better metric for the success of a packaged media format is media sales and with two weeks at about 84 percent and almost no decent red titles in sight, we'd be surprised if Blu victory in that court didn't continue.

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/01/29...were-no-trend/

What kind of crap is this? In the post above, they say blu ray has made a huge leap. Now the same group says otherwise? Bullsh!t.

Endgadget is crazy. I suppose 66% to 34% isn't a huge victory? Besides, with countless websites saying to buy a PS3 if you want a future proof blu ray player, it would seem obvious that many people would take that advice or wait for a new stand alone player to come out.