UK: BD software sales "surge" (1.5m discs in Dec, 400% growth YoY)

[Grubert]

Home entertainment market is "alive and kicking"

Despite the demise of Woolworths and Zavvi, the home entertainment market is "alive and kicking" according to statistics released by the British Video Association.

Using Official Charts Company data, the BVA, a trade body that helps promote the industry, says that despite the credit crunch, there's been a "surge" in the sales of Blu-ray discs.

1.5 million discs were sold in December, up almost 400% against the same period in 2007 - perhaps not surprising considering that HD DVD and the format war was still around a year ago.

The Dark Knight from Warner was the best selling Blu-ray title of the year with 281,000 copies sold while Mamma Mia! - The Movie from Universal did well on the DVD front, becoming the UK's fastest-selling DVD with over 3 million copies shifted in the first week.

We also know that UK sales in January-November 2008 were 2.2 million units. With that and other information from a previous press release, we have a more complete picture:

December 2007: 300,000 units
January-September 2008: 1,458,000 units (avg 162,000/month)
October 2008: 279,000 units
November 2008: 463,000 units
December 2008: 1,500,000 units