The British Video Association announced that June saw significant growth in the sales and rentals of DVDs. Consumers bought 38.5% more DVDs than in June 2006 and they also rented 4.7% more titles.

Strong new releases, including the British comedy, Hot Fuzz, and the children’s title, Charlotte’s Web, coupled with the wettest June on record, have been given as reasons for the uplift. Home entertainment has clearly offered some respite to the dreary wet weather.

While CD album sales have fallen 10% in the first six months of the year, DVD sales have risen by 12.6% with consumers benefitting from low prices and great new product. In all 108 million DVDs have been sold to the end of June this year, equivalent to some four copies per household.

Some of the BVA report highlights on the retail front:

• Total retail video sales, including DVD, hi-definition discs, UMD and VHS, saw volumes rise by 37.8% in June - its greatest rate of growth this year

• New releases were up by 48.4% in June, catalogue sales were up 35.4% in June

• The value of DVD sales rose 25.7% in June, its highest rate of growth since April last year, when Chronicles of Narnia and King Kong were released.

• The strongest performing genres in the first six months this year have been special interest (up 28%), film (up 15%) and children’s titles (up 14%). Film product dominates the market so has driven the lion’s share of overall market growth.

• Specialists (such as HMV and Virgin) produced their strongest performance this year in June, giving them a half year retail share of all video sales of 32.5%. Supermarkets continue to be the most important retailers in the market claiming 33.8% of all sales. They have seen their volumes rise by 33% year to date.

• Hot Fuzz (Universal Pictures) was the best seller of the month with over 933,000 copies and Charlotte’s Web (Paramount) ranked second with almost 300,000 copies bought in just three weeks.

• Casino Royale (Sony Pictures) continues to sell well and has gone over the 2.2 million unit mark to make it the top title for the year so far.

• Other big titles bursting onto the top 10 in the first half are The Queen (Fox/Pathé) and Happy Feet (Warner Home Video).

• Cinema releases of sequels are stimulating sales of the previous versions. Shreks One and Two (Paramount), the Die Hard trilogy (Fox) and Ocean’s 12 (Warner) are all back in the top 30 DVD charts in June, for example, while Pirates of the Caribbean – Dead Man’s Chest (Buena Vista) was pushed back up the chart in the first half sales figures.

On the rental front:

• June has been stronger for the rental market as well, with 9.3 million transactions – a 4.7% uplift on June 2006.

• The Departed (EV), Click (Sony Pics) and Casino Royale (Sony Pictures) are the top renting titles so far in 2007.

• On-line ordering of rentals represented 30% of the total market in June, its highest ever share of all transactions. Demand for rental via on-line services is up 5.3% since the start of the year and up 8.4% in the last 12 months.

• Over-the-counter transactions, the larger slice of the rental market, were up by 2.8% in June compared with May.

Lavinia Carey, Director General of the British Video Association said: “We are delighted with how the home entertainment sector is performing. DVD continues to prove its strength as a format and demand from customers keeps rising. Particularly encouraging is the growth in the rental sector, June seeing the first uplift in 12 months. We’ve got some excellent releases to look forward to in the coming months, so expect the trend to continue into the second half.”

Story filed 29.07.07