Despite the global recession and falling sales on the high street, Blu-ray is still showing strong growth, with the British Video Association reporting that for the first half of 2009, Blu-ray sales increased by 231% compared to the year before. More than 3.1 million Blu-ray discs were sold in the year to June, which may still only be a small amount compared to DVD, but shows the public is still keen on the format, despite there being less money about.
The Blu-ray charge was led by Quantum Of Solace, which is the biggest selling title so far this year on both Blu-ray and DVD. The Dark Knight is the second biggest selling Blu-ray of 2009, despite being released last December. Other top Blu-ray titles include Planet Earth, Taken, The Day The Earth Stood Still and Twilight.
The BVA’s Hannah Conduct said, “The continuing success of Blu-ray is testament to the growth of consumer confidence in the high definition format. There are now almost 1500 Blu-ray releases in the market covering a breadth of titles. Seeing is believing with Blu-ray and the figures show that once consumers have experienced the format, they continue to spend their money on the product.”
However the increase in spending on Blu-rat hasn’t quite managed to offset a drop in the number of DVDs sold, with sales for the older format currently down 9.5% compared to last year. with the total number of discs sold around 100 million.
The BVA is confident about the rest of the year, hoping that the strong slate of summer cinema releases will translate to massive disc sales in the Autumn.