Twice.com: Blu-ray's Lead Narrows

[ouiwey]

LINK

http://www.twice.com/article/CA6530692.html

Blu-ray's Lead Narrows
By Greg Tarr -- TWICE, 2/8/2008 12:14:00 PM

New York – Despite aggressive price promotions on HD DVD players from Toshiba, sales of Blu-ray Disc players continued to outsell HD DVD units by a wide margin through the week ending January 26, according to leaked NPD Group reports, but the gap has narrowed significantly from reports issued two weeks earlier.
Dedicated Blu-ray Disc player sales, which omit video game consoles, represented 65 percent of unit volume share during the period and 69 percent of retail sales dollars, according to the leaked data. HD DVD players accounted for 28 percent of hardware unit sales and 14 percent of overall HD disc retail dollars. The remainder can be attributed to combo player sales share at 6 percent unit sales and 17 percent dollar share.
NPD numbers reflect retail point of sales data gathered from its panel of reporting dealers.
Due to policies against publicly releasing its weekly sales data, a spokesperson for The NPD Group would not confirm the numbers sent to TWICE.
However, Ross Rubin, NPD Group industry analysis director, said that in general, “It has only been a couple of weeks since the Warner Bros. announcement [of exclusive support for HD DVD], as well as Toshiba’s price promotions, Microsoft’s lowering the price on its HD DVD Xbox peripheral and the [Toshiba] HD DVD Super Bowl ad. So, the story continues to evolve. The two formats ended 2007 essentially in a dead heat. Until one camp decides to give up its format we are going to continue to see confusion at retail.”
Although the recent numbers show Blu-ray Disc with a sizeable market share lead over HD DVD, they also showed a significant reduction from the much-publicized week ending January 12. At that time, NPD’s reports showed Blu-ray Disc taking 90 percent of both unit sales and dollar volume in the HD Disc player field.
Due to rampant reports using the numbers to declare HD DVD’s demise, NPD broke from its policy to confirm the leaked percentage numbers at that time, and to add that they didn’t necessarily indicate a trend resulting from Warner Bros.’ HD DVD defection.
Following the January 12 numbers confirmation, Stephen Baker, NPD Group industry analysis VP, said those results could have been skewed by major promotions being run by several Blu-ray Disc supporting companies, including bundled deals giving a free Blu-ray Disc player away with the purchase of like-branded HDTVs.
Jodi Sally, Toshiba Digital A/V Group marketing VP, said that if the numbers in the leaked January 12 report are accurate: “I feel it’s important to point out that there were several promotions being run by Blu-ray manufacturers that offered free players with the purchase of select HDTVs. These retail promos mainly highlighted HDTV ads around the Super Bowl.
“Although a player is given away free, it is still scanned at the retail register at the full retail price, similar in the way a ‘buy one, get one free’ offer on movies, is scanned as sales on both of the titles.”
Sally also pointed out that not all retailers report sales figures to NPD, including some key regional accounts and e-tailers, which could affect the count.
“Since Amazon.com is a public site, I can point out that Toshiba’s HD DVD players, consistently rank as the top sellers of all DVD players on their site.”
According to the leaked data, leading brands in the category during the January 26 period were:
* Sony (32 percent unit share, 33 percent dollar share);
* Toshiba (28 percent unit share, 14 percent dollar share),
* Samsung (13 percent unit share, 23 percent dollar share)
* Sharp (17 percent unit share, 14 percent dollar share),
*Panasonic (8 percent unit share, 12 percent dollar share),
* LG (1 percent unit share, 3 percent dollar share).

[DetroitSportsFan]

HD-Dead's sales increased last week due to the numerous fire sales to clear inventory. And after all of those sales, it still got its ass kicked.

[Joe Cain]

The two formats ended 2007 essentially in a dead heat.

Yup, that's why Warner deiced to dump one of them.

[Spider1981]

“It has only been a couple of weeks since the Warner Bros. announcement [of exclusive support for HD DVD], as well as Toshiba’s price promotions, Microsoft’s lowering the price on its HD DVD Xbox peripheral and the [Toshiba] HD DVD Super Bowl ad. So, the story continues to evolve. The two formats ended 2007 essentially in a dead heat. Until one camp decides to give up its format we are going to continue to see confusion at retail.”


I think this is like the 2nd or 3rd article recently which has gotten this backwards.

[HeavyHitter]

The problem with so many of these format war articles is the journalists can't seem to fully comprehend or understand the facts.

[Weati]

I hate these articles that give the losing side a little hope. The format war is over and I wish the last two big studios would come over to our side and put this crap to bed.

[Blu Titan]

The Nielsen Video Scan results for this upcoming Friday will have Blu-ray winning with over 80% of high def movies sales. Hopefully they will run an article titled "HD DVD Plummets Agains".

[pokerface]

Let me see, is winning 52 weeks in sales numbers a dead heat. I guess it must be because the media says so.

[Sonny]

These articles are $$$ down the drain for the "noob" who believes everything they read. Pisses me off...

[OokieSpookie]

Yeah Bob'schickenshackandconsumerelectronics.com is also reporting an hd comeback, doom and gloom says I!!



(Where do people find these sites why do they believe that they matter?)

[mattym]

getting desperate when tosh have to quote amazon sales ranks!!!

[bajor27]

To me, that article makes out like Amazon isn't counted in the results. I know their software sales numbers count, but can anyone confirm that their hardware sales count?

Also, it's not really a fair comparison to say that Toshiba's player is the top seller considering there isn't another HD-DVD manufacturer. Blu-ray consumers have a choice between many more players and brands so the numbers get spread out more. The fact is that overall Blu-ray players are outselling HD-DVD players, and in the end, that's all that matters.

I also love how they kept saying "if the numbers were accurate". Since when are these sales numbers not reliable? Oh right - when you want to write an article claiming HD-DVD isn't as dead as everyone with a brain knows.

[JAGUAR1977]

Originally Posted by mattym

getting desperate when tosh have to quote amazon sales ranks!!!

They go from outsellng Blu-ray standalones, to 50/50, then crash after the Warner move, and are now 'only' being outsold 2-1 after massive price cuts..............and they spin this as good news?

After using the attach rate argument, they're now using Amazon rankings!

As each day passes, they sound more like misguided HD-DVD fanboys!

[zipbags]

Why do these articles continue to not include PS3's?? It makes no sense. I purchased a ps3 in November and have yet to play a game on it.

[Razzy]

Originally Posted by OokieSpookie

(Where do people find these sites why do they believe that they matter?)

Better question is why newbies are allowed to post this stuff. Members should have at least 100 posts before creating new threads, imo. This bs thread was created to stir up shit, pure & simple.

[Anthony P]

Better question is why newbies are allowed to post this stuff.

agree, I would say a certain number of posts and time in the newby section then a certain number of posts and time just responding. Then they an post in the rest of them.

[Anthony P]

Since the "dead heat" is a NPD quote, it applies to stand alone player sales and not to movies or all players. But yes, that article is not worth the bits it uses. Misquoting hacking things together to give the wrong impression …

[mightypen]

Originally Posted by zipbags

Why do these articles continue to not include PS3's?? It makes no sense. I purchased a ps3 in November and have yet to play a game on it.

Look on the brightside, it makes the attach rate of movies seem much much higher than it actually is.

And really, the studios aren't ignoring the massive base the ps3 adds, which in the end is more important than the hardware numbers. Software numbers are more important, anyway.

[SDG]

Look at his 3 post. It is obvious what he is.

[Clark Kent]

This article might as well have been written by the HD DVD public relations group. This is how the game is played. It's complete spin to try to counteract the real world effect of Warner dropping HD DVD and hope that it gets linked at the various forums.