The Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) expects sales of Blu-ray disks in the US to exceed those of standard DVDs by 2012.
In its latest Annual Report on the Home Entertainment Industry, the EMA reports that home video continues to dominate the movie market.
This segment of the market had sales of approximately US$24 billion, making it the largest segment of consumer movie spending by far, accounting for 49% of total consumer movie spending in 2007.
In the video game market, game software sales increased 34% in 2007, to a total of US$8.6 billion.
EMA is the not-for-profit international trade association that represent s the interests of the home entertainment industry.
The report said that nearly 9 million high-definition discs were sold in 2007, for which consumers spent more than US$260 million.
But it projected that in 2012, sales of Blu-ray Discs will have outstripped those of standard DVDs and will generate sales of US$9.5 billion.
Bo Andersen, president and CEO of EMA, said the report provided comprehensive data on and analysis of sales and rentals of DVDs, Blu-ray Discs, video on demand, computer and console video games, and competing technologies.
He said DVD still dominated the movie market but consumers were swiftly adopting new technologies.
“Consumers remain enamored with DVD and video games even as they incorporate new forms of entertainment media into their consumption patterns,” he said.
“New generations of hardware and software, and alternative delivery channels, will ensure that home video and video games remain phenomenally popular entertainment options for the American public for years to come.”
Other statistics in the report included:
Home video generated US US$15.9 billion in sales and US$8.2 billion in rentals in 2007.
There were 12,177 DVDs released in 2007, down from a peak of 13,950 in 2005.
Home video spending is projected to increase to US$25.6 billion in 2012.
Traditional rental stores, dominated by Blockbuster, accounted for 73% of the rental business in 2007.
Online subscription rental (such as Netflix and Blockbuster’s Total Access) were 25% of the market. Kiosk rental doubled its market share to 2%.
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