Over the first nine months of 2011, French consumers have spent €801.99 million on DVD and Blu-ray discs – down 8.8% over the same period last year, according to the latest CNC-GfK figures. While sales of DVD dropped by 12.9% to €672.06 million, Blu-ray continues to grow to reach sales of €129.23 million, up 20.4% over the January-to-September period. Blu-ray now accounts for 16.2% of total disc sales, compared to 12.3% over the same period last year.

When it comes to unit volumes, French consumers bought 7.5% fewer discs during Q1-Q3 than over the same period in 2010. A total of 83.37 million discs were sold – 75.44 million DVDs (-10.5%) and 7.93 million Blu-ray discs (+35.2%). As for pricing, new DVD titles retailed on average for €18.18 – up 1.2% over last year. The average catalogue title was selling for €8.01 – down 0.1%.

In sales terms, DVDs in the €17-€20 bracket accounted for 25.1% of total revenues, compared to 27% over the first nine months of 2010. In units terms, DVDs priced €3 to €8 accounted for 38.3% of total volume (35.4% in 2010). Sales of under-€3 DVDs represented 0.8% of total revenue and 5.5% in volume.

The average price of a new Blu-ray title was €23,59, which is a drop of 1.9% over last year. As regards a catalogue titles, Blu-ray disc retailed for €12.59 – down 13.9% over 2010. €10-€13 Blu-ray discs account for 33.2% of total BD volumes. In value terms, €20-€25 BD title made up 31.6% of total Blu-ray revenues.

Feature films dominate packaged media, accounting for €495.12 million during the first nine months of 2011 – 61.7% of total discs sold. However, revenues from this video category fell 11.8% over last year. This is explained by a sharp sales drop of DVD films (-17.1%) to €383.67 million, not compensated by the growth of Blu-ray (+13%) to €111.46 million. In terms of units sold, combined DVD/Blu-ray discs sales in this category fell by 8.7% to 42.91 million units.

French films held their corner on packaged media. Over the first nine months of this year, DVDs and Blu-ray discs generated sales of €115.31 million, down 5.1% over last year. However, the market share of French films on discs increased to 23.3% of total value, against 21.6% in 2010. Some 10.31 million DVD and Blu-ray discs of French films were sold this year, only 0.1% fewer than in 2010. They account for 12% of total Blu-ray revenues.

In trend terms, American films did not fare as well as Gallic content on discs. They dropped 20.9% to €290.87 million. The market share of US films still command 58.7% of home entertainment media, down from 65.5% last year.

French consumers bought 25.50 million DVDs and Blu-ray discs of US films, down 16.2% over 2010. Blu-ray is the blockbusters’ format, so that is no surprise that US films account for 68.2% of Blu-ray sales.

Over the first nine months of 2011, the only market segment to record a growth in revenues is TV drama – up 2.3%, translating into receipts of €159.28 million. Disc sales of French TV drama grew 27.9% over 2010, generating 10.9% of total TV drama sales. US TV drama fell 5.3% to €109.50 million.

The content categories that showed the biggest decline on disc in value terms were Music (-18.4%) and Documentaries (-23.2%).

Story filed 10.11.11