{"id":3364,"date":"2014-12-19T22:14:35","date_gmt":"2014-12-19T12:14:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.digital-digest.com\/blog\/DVDGuy\/?p=3364"},"modified":"2015-01-07T13:24:19","modified_gmt":"2015-01-07T03:24:19","slug":"blu-ray-the-state-of-play-december-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.digital-digest.com\/blog\/DVDGuy\/2014\/12\/19\/blu-ray-the-state-of-play-december-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"Blu-ray: The State of Play – December 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to another edition of our annual Blu-ray sales analysis, even if this one is extremely late. My justification is that I wanted to make this more of a year-on-year comparison (so the whole of 2013 vs whole of 2014), as opposed to doing one in May (May being the\u00a0first month that I’ve been keeping regular stats for Blu-ray sales). So this “State of Play” report is slightly different to ones in the past<\/a>, and concentrates more on 2014’s results versus that of 2013.<\/p>\n

Note that the last couple of weeks for 2014 is still missing, and so\u00a0an update to this post will be made when these results come in, sometime during the middle of January.<\/p>\n

The data used in this analysis derives from our\u00a0weekly updates<\/a>, based on figures released by\u00a0Home Media Magazine<\/a>. Some of the historical figures you\u2019ll see have also been adjusted, due to slight tweaking of the metrics used by HMM to create these sets of data, although the changes have been very subtle and does not change the bigger picture in any way.<\/p>\n

As per usual, this\u00a0first set of graphs show Blu-ray market share<\/span> (Blu-ray and combo market share as a percentage of all disc sales) through the six\u00a0year period that I have tracked them, with the release milestones pointed out.<\/p>\n

\"Blu-ray<\/a>

Blu-ray Sales Percentage – 4 May 2008 to 6 December 2014 – Click to see larger version<\/p><\/div>\n

As the graph is getting perhaps a bit too wide, here’s a condensed version that allows you to see Blu-ray’s market share rise more clearly.<\/p>\n

\"Blu-ray<\/a>

Blu-ray Market Share – 4 May 2008 to 6 December 2014<\/p><\/div>\n

It’s interesting to look at\u00a0the most recent additions to the “milestones”, or new releases that had a profound impact on Blu-ray weekly revenue or market share. There were many, but that’s mostly due to the extended period we’re covering in this report, but when you consider that\u00a0the peak\u00a0weekly Blu-ray market share has not been broken in all this time, and that the record remains with the week\u00a0The Avengers<\/a>\u00a0was released back in September of 2012 (44.10%, re-adjusted), you can sort\u00a0of start to come to a conclusion that Blu-ray’s growth has stagnated<\/strong>. The closest\u00a0week to breaking the record came in the week that Frozen<\/a> was released (42.16%<\/strong>), undoubtedly the biggest Blu-ray release in the year and a half covered by this analysis.\u00a0The up and down nature of the weekly results show that market share, like revenue, is very much release dependent. A good “A-lister” this week or a Blu-ray exclusive can get market share and revenue rising fast, but a slow week, and it goes down again. But the rising trend is clear, especially in the second graph above.<\/p>\n

We noted in the last State of Play report<\/a>\u00a0for the above graph that the “trendline just breaks above the 30% mark at the end of April 2013, and that’s probably a fair reflection of where Blu-ray market share is, or will be soon enough.” Looking at the trendline above, it is still just barely above 30%, although this will edge up a bit when the\u00a0end of the year’s bumper week’s sales data are added. Amazingly, the average weekly Blu-ray market share figure was exactly 30.00%<\/strong> for the 85 weeks covered by this report, up from the 27.47% (re-adjusted) average weekly market share recorded from the last report period (April 2012 to April 2013). The 4-6% annual increase, seen previously, appears to be slowing down.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the last report, I stated that:<\/p>\n

It’s worth noting that Blu-ray’s rising market share has as much to do with DVD’s decline as it has to do with actual rise in Blu-ray sales, probably more so. The rise in spending in digital streaming and downloading is one of the major factors in the decline of DVD sales, in addition to the rising popularity of Blu-ray.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is still very much true, although as you will slowly realise when you read the rest of this report, the rise of digital may now be having an effect on Blu-ray sales too. Here’s a graph\u00a0plotting the current weekly market share (red) compared to the same week a year ago (blue):<\/p>\n

\"Blu-ray<\/a>

Blu-ray Sales Market Share: 2008\/12 versus 2009\/14 Comparison<\/p><\/div>\n

The gap between the red line and the blue line above shows how much market share has jumped\u00a0in that week compared to the same week a year ago. You’ll notice that\u00a0towards the end of the graph, the two lines are getting closer and closer. In fact,\u00a0the blue line is often above the red line for many of the weeks (ie. Blu-ray weekly market share has actually shrunk compared to a year ago). In other words, the growth in Blu-ray’s market share has slowed and even reversed in some cases.<\/strong> Obviously, this has to do with the caliber of weekly releases, but another take could be that whatever was causing DVD revenue to decline has stopped or slowed, or that the same factor is now causing Blu-ray revenue to decline or to remain steady. I believe digital is the factor here.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Let’s take a closer look at Blu-ray revenue<\/span> for the same period.<\/p>\n

\"Blu-ray<\/a>

Blu-ray Revenue Growth – January 2010 to December 2014<\/p><\/div>\n

The graph above clearly shows that Blu-ray revenue peaks during the holiday sales period (of which we are still missing 2014’s, as obviously, it hasn’t finished yet. But there is a worrying dip between April and October of 2014, a dip that’s slightly lower than the same time from 2013.<\/p>\n

\"Blu-ray<\/a>

Blu-ray Sales Revenue: 2010\/13 versus 2011\/14 Comparison<\/p><\/div>\n

The same trend is visible in the graph above.\u00a0Just like with the market share graph further above, this comparison graph compares each week’s Blu-ray revenue with that from a year ago. The normal situation should see the lighter purple line always above the darker line (as this indicates Blu-ray revenue growth), but look at the 2014 period on the graph, and you will see quite a few times where the darker line is above the lighter line (indicating Blu-ray revenue has fallen). The overall trend is that Blu-ray revenue growth has stagnated, or even fallen from week-to-week, during 2014.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now let’s take a closer look at the comparison between calendar 2013 and 2014<\/span> (so far).<\/p>\n

\"Blu-ray<\/a>

Blu-ray Sales Revenue: 2013 vs 2014 Comparison<\/p><\/div>\n

The relatively poor results in 2014 can be seen much clearer in the above graph, with\u00a0many weeks in 2014 being lower in revenue than the same weeks in 2013. Obviously each week’s releases ultimately determine\u00a0market share and revenue, but it’s hard to ignore a trend that has been fairly consistent over an entire year. (Update:<\/strong> the graph above and below have both\u00a0been updated\u00a0to include data from the rest of 2014)<\/p>\n

\"Blu-ray<\/a>

Blu-ray Sales Market Share: 2013 vs 2014 Comparison<\/p><\/div>\n

The same trend is there, but less pronounced for market share, although the problem appears to be worse for the last couple of months (this could be due to a strong release slate during this time in 2013 and\/or a weaker release slate for the same period in 2014).<\/p>\n

Looking at the raw numbers, this is where things become a lot more clearer. Out of the 52 weeks for 2014, 35 of them had the weekly revenue lower<\/em> than the same week in 2013. Only 17 weeks recorded a revenue result that was higher<\/em> than the same week in 2013. The situation is completely reversed when you look at 2012 vs 2013 results, where 35 week had higher revenue compared to 17 weeks with lower.\u00a0Looking at total sales though, 2014’s Blu-ray sales total has declined\u00a0compared to\u00a02013, $2.122 billion versus $2.306\u00a0billion. This is the first year-on-year decline since Blu-ray’s\u00a0launch in 2006\u00a0<\/strong>(the above information has been updated to include the rest of the weeks for 2014)<\/p>\n

Conclusion:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

To sum up:<\/p>\n