DisplaySearch: Blu-ray player sales to double next year

Price, standard-definition satisfaction remain deterrents

By Danny King -- Video Business, 9/16/2008

SEPT. 16 | HOLLYWOOD, Calif.—Global unit sales of standalone Blu-ray players will triple this year and will double next year as prices fall, more titles are released and a larger percentage of the population own high-definition TVs, researchers for NPD Group unit DisplaySearch said at its HDTV 2008 conference at the Renaisance Hollywood Hotel here.

Worldwide consumers will buy 2.38 million Blu-ray set-top players this year and 5.31 million next year, up from about 700,000 in 2007, said Paul Gagnon, DisplaySearch director of North America TV research, at the conference. With such a surge in stand-alone players, Sony's PlayStation 3 consoles, which include Blu-ray players, will no longer be the biggest selling Blu-ray hardware source by 2010, Gagnon said.

The increase is a reflection of falling prices for Blu-ray players as well as the rapid adoption of HDTVs, especially in the U.S., which will switch to all-digital broadcasts next February. HDTVs will account for more than half of all TVs shipped this year and will make up 80% of TVs sold in 2011, Gagnon said.

"We are now at a transition time in the market," said Ross Rubin, NPD director of industry analysis, at the conference. "Close to half of U.S. households are having HD in the home."

Still, the high price of Blu-ray players and customer satisfaction with standard-definition machines remain deterrents to further growth of the next-generation machines, said Rubin, citing a recent survey of about 1,500 consumers. More than a third of those surveyed said they're either waiting for Blu-ray player prices to drop further or see no need to upgrade from standard-definition machines, while just 5% polled said they planned to buy either a stand-alone Blu-ray player or PlayStation 3.