New figures on the home entertainment market just released by the British Video Association reveal that video home entertainment has weathered the recessionary storm in 2009, with December unit sales up 1.8% on the same time in 2008, giving the market a traditional seasonal boost.

Q4 sales volumes increased 83% on the previous quarter and were only 3.0% lower than the same period in 2008, when Woolworths and Zavvi were still trading. The closure of these two chains last December, which together represented 13% of the market, severely hit the following first quarter video sales in 2009, as it did other entertainment sectors. Since spring the decline has levelled out and the BVA anticipates seeing overall growth return in 2010.

This is expected to come from the increasing digital market and from Blu‐ray discs, as HD‐ready TVs are forecast to rise from 58% of UK TV households in 20091 to 72% this year, boosted by HD TV coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in June.

Sales of Blu‐ray discs increased 123% year‐on‐year to 8.4 million units, demonstrating the increasing strength in demand for the high‐definition home entertainment format, and made up 3.4% of total video sales. However, in Q4 the high‐definition format made up a higher proportion of new release disc sales than ever before, with Blu‐ray accounting for 26% of 'District 9' sales, 23% of 'Terminator Salvation' sales and 22% of 'Inglourious Basterds' and Star Trek 11. Since their launch 13 million Blu‐ray discs have sold.

Stand alone Blu‐ray player sales rose 158% to the end of November, which the BVA estimates could bring total sales in 2009 to over 600,000.

Rising popularity of Blu‐ray was offset by a 7.3% year‐on‐year decline in DVD sales. DVDs account for 96.3% of the home entertainment video retail market, meaning total sales of video have dipped 5.6% to 243.5 million units from 257.9 million in 2008.

Lavinia Carey, Director General of the British Video Association (pictured) says: "The home entertainment industry has come through the recession fighting and rallied in the run up to Christmas. DVD sales are down 5.6% due to several factors, including the effects of copyright theft and the changing retail landscape. Careful shoppers have benefitted from the fantastic promotional offers last year but the loss of Woolworths’ and Zavvi’s 900‐odd stores meant that the 13% market‐share they jointly represented, worth around £300 million, has been slow to replace, particularly given the high propensity of Woolworths shoppers to buy on impulse."

While DVDs, and increasingly Blu‐ray discs, remain the most popular formats on which to view video, consumers are progressively trying new formats within the digital market, such as paid‐for ‘downloads to own,’ reflecting an exciting transitional period for the video industry.

Mike Brown, Head of Technology at the BVA comments: "Monitoring online digital transactions in the future will be crucial for both distributors and retailers as they need the information to plan future sales and investment strategies. As the rights owners’ trade body, the BVA is the driving force uniting the industry and encouraging them to provide the data to form the digital sales and rental charts.”

Story filed 09.01.10