Disc seller are blaming the current global recession and the increase in piracy online as the reason for a drop in the sale of both Blu-ray and DVD’s during 2008.
With a drop in the sale of Blu-ray and DVD discs by 4.8 percent worldwide during 2008, disc companies are blaming widespread online piracy, which appears to be steadily increasing and the current global economic climate as the reason for the slump.
With the current uncertainty of whether to download or stream films online or use physical media like Blu-ray discs many of the industry’s disc seller were expecting Blu-ray to help improve the state of the market and increase sales.
These figures were recently released in a report by Screen Digest who has explained the reason for the drop saying “We expect Blu-ray to account for 6.9% of international video spending this year – assuming there is strong promotional activity. However, despite consumers’ interest in the high definition format and demand for packaged media, the current challenging economic climate means that we don’t expect BD to be driving even minimal sector growth until 2010.”
During 2008 the overall sales of Blu-ray discs came to a global figure of $482 million, which “barely made a dent in the missing revenue.”
At the moment Australia is the only country in the world that is seeing a growth in DVD rentals with every other country showing a decline in their sales revenues. Site such as Quickflix are being attributed to the growth of its online retail services in Australia.
Many in the Blu-ray media industry are hoping that the falling prices of the Blu-ray players and the gradual introduction of more affordable Blu-ray recorders will help to increase the quantity of Blu-ray discs sold over the rest of 2009.
Source - www.techradar.com