Standalone Blu-ray player sales triple over Black Friday

by Darren Murph posted Dec 9th 2008 at 7:48PM

Black Friday sales overall may have been weak this year, but high-def sales were something special. HDTVs were up, and judging by the latest DisplaySearch numbers, so were Blu-ray players. Not including Sony's PlayStation 3, Blu-ray Disc player revenue during the week of Thanksgiving in the US and Black Friday "more than tripled from a year earlier after Sony and Samsung dropped their prices of entry-level machines below $200." Over $30 million was generated on sales of 147,000 Blu-ray decks, and overall prices averaged $200 compared to nearly $400 just a year ago. Of course, we can't say that the momentum will carry now that prices are hovering back up, but at least the BDA will have one particularly bright spot to brag over when it looks back at 2008.

Filed under: Industry, Blu-ray, Players, Sony

Tags: bd, blu-ray, blu-ray adoption, blu-ray player, Blu-rayAdoption, Blu-rayPlayer, displaysearch, growth, industry, research, sales

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

shawnmos @ Dec 9th 2008 8:02PM

I guess that's good, but 147,000 doesn't really sound like a lot.

Neutral

JDS @ Dec 9th 2008 8:24PM

147,000 BD players @ an average price of $200 beats 90,000 HD DVD A2s @ $99 per in both number of units [+57,000 units] & average sale price [+101.00 per]

Neutral

Bozster @ Dec 9th 2008 8:33PM

@JDS

That maybe so but I'm not sure why you are comparing sales to HD DVD.. First of all at that time there 2 competing formats so a lot of people were holding off regardless of the price, second a lot and i mean A LOT less people even really understood what HD DVD or Blu-Ray were. This Black Friday it's a full year into Blu-Ray being alone and having sales at less then 150k is still, as shawnmos says, pretty low, I would expected at least 3 times the number of units sold then that.

You can't spin this really in no other way but somewhat disappointing as to what some people might've expected. Also it shows that 300% number sounds really really good but when you see real unit sales, that excitement really somewhat fades away.

Is there a number of how many DVD players were sold? I think that would give you an even more realistic picture.

Neutral

Kumar @ Dec 9th 2008 8:46PM

haha, who even cares about hd dvd sales stats anymore, when the likes of netflix hd downloads are steamrolling?

We all know that if blu players don't drop in price permanently soon, blu will be dead in the water, not due to lack of interest, but lack of funds. Dang, I even have to put off my touch pro purchase :/

Highly Ranked

WebDev511 @ Dec 9th 2008 9:44PM

@Kumar
No, it won't be dead, it just won't be DVD.

Blu needs to keep its entry level players at $200 or less. Black Friday from 2007 & 2008 proved that affordable players = more sales. No format war helped up the price that people were willing to pay this year, but if player prices stay at $300 or up, adoption isn't going to take off anytime soon.

Highest Ranked

L3 @ Dec 9th 2008 8:27PM

"and overall prices averaged $200 compared to nearly $400 just a year ago"

Next year: FREE.

I was told that there would be No Math.

Neutral

towergrove @ Dec 15th 2008 8:11PM

Kumar you mean netflix here:

"In the past two weeks, customers of iTunes and Netflix's streaming digital-movie service have noticed that a growing number of titles are disappearing from the sites or are scheduled to be removed. MacWorld wrote a story last week about how one of the site's contributors noticed that of the 15 films he bookmarked for future viewing at iTunes, nine were no longer available. Among the movies that vanished were Charlie Wilson's War, Eastern Promises, and Michael Clayton."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10119509-93.html

No thanks. More reasons not to go with these services. I dont want them telling me when I can watch and what to watch and then take it away. Poof, Gone

Neutral

mntwister @ Dec 9th 2008 11:42PM

That's an impressive number, but considering the number of homes with video dvd players, it is still a smaller number. I am surprised actually. I think if they had left the prices at $199 throughout the entire holiday season, they would see a much bigger increase yet to come. And of course the economy has to be considered. When buying a player, people also have to consider how much they will be paying for the discs. It was nice to see Warner take 50 titles and reduce their retail price to 19.95, so most are on sale at $14.99 at brick-morter stores, other studios should follow suit because there are alot of releases out that were not blockbusters that should not be 39.95 suggested retail.

Neutral

Mike @ Dec 10th 2008 3:12AM

How much of low sales were due to availability? When the sonystyle.com store ran the $150 sale on the sony 350 it was sold out in hours. And I would bet the supply at the stores on black friday didn't meet demand.

@mntwister
"I think if they had left the prices at $199 throughout the entire holiday season, they would see a much bigger increase yet to come."

yes when they lower the price... i got my samsung 1500 when it was $150...no way paying $200.

@Darren
"Of course, we can't say that the momentum will carry now that prices are hovering back up"

just a couple days ago Amavon was selling the Samsung1500 for $210 then buy 8 movies and save $200...most movies were $15 or $17 or $21. Prices are still low just look for the deals.

Neutral

3dpenguin @ Dec 10th 2008 1:30PM

I doubt the low numbers were due to low availability, after the initial Black Friday rushes the stores still had shelves of Blu-ray players available, there just wasn't that much interest in the format, yes there was an increase over last year, but with the average price being over half of the average price last year that was to be expected. The low numbers was probably due to the looming recession, it is happening all over the world, and a $200 player in a recession isn’t a necessity it is a luxury.

Neutral

zargon @ Dec 10th 2008 7:33AM

Having lower player prices is nice, but there is another side to this equation, software prices. If they don't work harder to get those prices down to slightly above DVD prices, then the masses are not going to buy.

While streaming video is nice, I think there are a lot people out there that want the physical media, me included. I want to play it when I want and where I want. Download also scares me since I have to worry about storage and redundancy of that storage, something that the average Joe isn't, but it will end up biting a lot of them in the ass. I don't foresee streaming or downloadable video really being more than a niche (great for rental type use) in the near future.

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