Record sales of HD DVD players - 60% of hidef standalones

[diabolo]

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/s...e,119772.shtml

LOS ANGELES, June 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Three weeks into its aggressive spring retail and marketing campaigns, the North American HD DVD Promotional Group today announced HD DVD is significantly ahead in the dedicated consumer electronics player market with 60% of all high definition set-top players sold. At the same time, high definition movie sales for HD DVD reached an all time high for the month of May, exceeding 75,000 movies the last week of May alone.

Overall high definition sales hit a record last week as well, hitting $5.2 million in actual consumer spending, which was 31% higher than the previous record for the two formats. This highlights the growing consumer appetite for HD content across the board.

Sales of dedicated consumer electronics players are a critical indicator in the adoption of the high definition formats, given the high attach rates to these players. With the successive price drops by Toshiba, weekly player sales doubled in April when the price dropped from $499 to $399, doubled again during the first week of the latest promotion in late May, and increased again last week.

"Toshiba's latest promotional efforts are clearly resonating with consumers and showing that price is king when it comes to hardware," said Craig Kornblau, chairman of the North American HD DVD Promotional Group. "Behind the increase in sales for hardware and movies, you are seeing fundamentally lower manufacturing costs and ease of authoring for HD DVD. That's the type of model that can scale."

Consumers have purchased 150,000 dedicated HD DVD consumer electronics players which are holding a 4 to 1 movie attach rate over competing formats. The Toshiba HD-A2 model has also reached the top-seller mark among all DVD players on Amazon.com, and is officially the best-selling next-gen DVD player model to date.

[HarakoMeshi]

Is it just me or capturing only 60% of the HD set-top market sounds terrible for HD DVD. They are supposed to be the big standalone set-top box leader by far. They supposedly had a lead since a long time. Even after this huge fire sale its still only got 60%? RiDiCuLoUs.

Thanks for posting this, you really made my day. 60%

[Thulium]

I think that means that there are 100k Blu-ray standalones (+3 million PS3s worldwide) and if HD DVD sold over 75,000 units...that means that about 120,000 Blu-ray movies were sold...that makes sense since nearly 48,000 were Pirate movies that week.

[Grubert]

HD DVD press release: Consumers Drive Record Sales of HD DVD Players to Capture 60% of HD Set-Top Market

Highlights:

Hardware-related

- HD DVD has 60% of all high definition set-top players sold.

- Consumers have purchased 150,000 dedicated HD DVD consumer electronics players which are holding a 4 to 1 movie attach rate over competing formats.

- With the successive price drops by Toshiba, weekly player sales doubled in April when the price dropped from $499 to $399, doubled again during the first week of the latest promotion in late May, and increased again last week.

- The Toshiba HD-A2 model has also reached the top-seller mark among all DVD players on Amazon.com, and is officially the best-selling next-gen DVD player model to date.

Software-related

- High definition movie sales for HD DVD reached an all time high for the month of May.

- High definition movie sales for HD DVD exceeded 75,000 movies the last week of May alone.

- Overall high definition sales hit a record $5.2 million in actual consumer spending last week, which was 31% higher than the previous record for the two formats.

[marine92104]

Originally Posted by HarakoMeshi

Is it just me or capturing only 60% of the HD set-top market sounds terrible for HD DVD. They are supposed to be the big standalone set-top box leader by far. They supposedly had a lead since a long time. Even after this huge fire sale its still only got 60%? RiDiCuLoUs.

Thanks for posting this, you really made my day. 60%

That's sort of like the reverse arguement of so many Blu-ray players out there if including the PS3's & the attach rate for movies are so low. (48,000 total for both Pirate movies) as an example. However that would be like calling the 48,000 total sold for both Pirate movies ridiculous. I didn't think it was ridiculous. Neither did I think The Matrix Trilogy sales ridiculous considering they were not sold seperately & most people already had them on standard DVD. If the Spider-man movies were sold as a 3 movie boxset I'd think you would see lower sales on them also. I'm just glad hidef movies are selling.

Both arguements can go both ways so I see what you're saying. I'm just glad standalones are selling better for both formats. Looks like the plus of the format war is lowering the prices of players for both sides quicker. There are some pluses to this war.

It reminds me of the 61 to 39% Blu-ray to HD DVD movie sales this week. It's getting closer for both formats with movies & standalones. Hopefully Hidef will be around for a long time.

[HarakoMeshi]

Its quite good FUD. There will be uninformed people who read that press release and think "Oh, HD DVD has a 60% lead in players, and they're selling 4 times more moveis per player. That's like 6 times more movies sold than Blu-ray!".

[marine92104]

Originally Posted by HarakoMeshi

Its quite good FUD. There will be uninformed people who read that press release and think "Oh, HD DVD has a 60% lead in players, and they're selling 4 times more moveis per player. That's like 6 times more movies sold than Blu-ray!".

How can it be FUD it there's numbers to support it?

It just said HD DVD has the lead in set top players & that they had hit a high for movies. Last week it was 61% to 39%. That is getting closer than it has been in the past. It's not doubt because players are selling better with the lower price. It makes sense.

I can understand someone's frustration when they are wanting a format to go away & they're selling alot of players & the software sales are getting higher but I wouldn't call it FUD.

I just hope we get away from gaming consoles for hidef players as set top players get lower.

[Fozziwig]

Originally Posted by diabolo

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/s...e,119772.shtml

LOS ANGELES, June 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Three weeks into its aggressive spring retail and marketing campaigns, the North American HD DVD Promotional Group today announced HD DVD is significantly ahead in the dedicated consumer electronics player market with 60% of all high definition set-top players sold. At the same time, high definition movie sales for HD DVD reached an all time high for the month of May, exceeding 75,000 movies the last week of May alone.

Overall high definition sales hit a record last week as well, hitting $5.2 million in actual consumer spending, which was 31% higher than the previous record for the two formats. This highlights the growing consumer appetite for HD content across the board.

<Toshiba promo snipped>

Consumers have purchased 150,000 dedicated HD DVD consumer electronics players which are holding a 4 to 1 movie attach rate over competing formats. The Toshiba HD-A2 model has also reached the top-seller mark among all DVD players on Amazon.com, and is officially the best-selling next-gen DVD player model to date.

I'm impressed that so many expensive Blu-ray players have sold. This bodes extremely well for the new Sony & Panasonic models.

As for the software sales. Fantastic! Blu-ray have sold well over 100,000 copies per week (if we go on the figures in this article) since the 'Pirates' launch. Very nice!

I'm confused why the OP thought this was good news for HD DVD. When you take out the spin it's actually pretty dreadful. A $199 Toshiba HD DVD player should be beating those $1,000 Blu-ray players by a tad more than 60:40.

I know it's not really $1,000 for a BD standalone, but that's the figure that our HD DVD friends like to throw out, so I'm just throwing it back.

[HarakoMeshi]

Originally Posted by marine92104

How can it be FUD it there's numbers to support it?

I can understand someone's frustration when they are wanting a format to go away & they're selling alot of players & the software sales are getting higher but I wouldn't call it FUD.

There are always numbers in spin and FUD.

Its FUD because it is a carefully worded selectively picked set of words and numbers which separately from the rest of reality make it sound like HD DVD is winning the format war by far.

"We are #1 seller of players with 60%", "we have 4:1 attach rate over our competitors" all sounds very nice until you face the facts that Blu-ray outsold HD DVD 2:1 on average for 6 months.

[marine92104]

Originally Posted by Fozziwig

I'm impressed that so many expensive Blu-ray players have sold. This bodes extremely well for the new Sony & Panasonic models.

As for the software sales. Fantastic! Blu-ray have sold well over 100,000 copies per week (if we go on the figures in this article) since the 'Pirates' launch. Very nice!

I'm confused why the OP thought this was good news for HD DVD. When you take out the spin it's actually pretty dreadful. A $199 Toshiba HD DVD player should be beating those $1,000 Blu-ray players by a tad more than 60:40.

I know it's not really $1,000 for a BD standalone, but that's the figure that our HD DVD friends like to throw out, so I'm just throwing it back.

I just got to thinking if it's a 4:1 attach rate for standalones would the attach rate for Blu-ray be even lower considering all the PS3's that are out there. They just gave the attach rate for movies for standalones players & didn't count the PS3's from what I read. If the PS3's are added in wouldn't that be even worse for attach rate than most of us thought?

I hope studios don't consider that a bad thing & that's why the Blu-ray releases have slowed down for the Blu-ray exclusive studios besides Sony.

I don't want the releases to slow down on either side. I love my hidef movies.

[HarakoMeshi]

Originally Posted by marine92104

I just got to thinking if it's a 4:1 attach rate for standalones would the attach rate for Blu-ray be even lower considering all the PS3's that are out there. They just gave the attach rate for movies for standalones players & didn't count the PS3's from what I read. If the PS3's are added in wouldn't that be even worse for attach rate than most of us thought?

They aren't just giving attach rates for Blu-ray standalones. They are giving attach rate compared to all Blu-ray players including the millions of PS3s they pretend don't exist except when it serves their purpose.

ie, "PS3 exists when we make up attach rates", "PS3s don't exist when we make up player market shares"

There's 360 add-ons to factor in also.

Originally Posted by Fozziwig

I'm confused why the OP thought this was good news for HD DVD. When you take out the spin it's actually pretty dreadful. A $199 Toshiba HD DVD player should be beating those $1,000 Blu-ray players by a tad more than 60:40.

I know it's not really $1,000 for a BD standalone, but that's the figure that our HD DVD friends like to throw out, so I'm just throwing it back.

Exactly my thought too, I mean I was thinking HD DVD had a much bigger share of standalone sales since a long time. It sounds pretty bad for them. HD DVD players have been significantly cheaper than Blu-ray players for ages.

[diabolo]

Originally Posted by HarakoMeshi

They aren't just giving attach rates for Blu-ray standalones. They are giving attach rate compared to all Blu-ray players including the millions of PS3s they pretend don't exist except when it serves their purpose.

In that case it would be something like this "Consumers have purchased 150,000 dedicated HD DVD consumer electronics players which are holding a 10 to 1 movie attach rate over competing formats"

[MasterBlaster]

Originally Posted by HarakoMeshi

Is it just me or capturing only 60% of the HD set-top market sounds terrible for HD DVD. They are supposed to be the big standalone set-top box leader by far. They supposedly had a lead since a long time. Even after this huge fire sale its still only got 60%? RiDiCuLoUs.

Thanks for posting this, you really made my day. 60%

Um, how is it bad for HD DVD? First, stand alone sales were thought to be neck and neck before this Toshiba sale at around 100,000 stand alones each right? Looks to me that HD DVD just massively increased it's lead in the stand alone battle.

Second, this sale has only just begun. The price only just got down to $199 over the weekend, on the website of a magazine only enthusiasts know about, so how could that price affect this report? Not only that, but with this low price standard of even $299 at B&M, we are only going to see HD DVD continue it's growth in the stand alone market, maybe even at a faster pace now, we will see what they report next month.

What this report shows is that BD stand alone sales have absolutely stagnated, because all the BD experts here claimed there were 100,000 players on each side for quite awhile now, and according to this report, HD DVD buyers purchased 50,000 units this past month, and nobody bought any BD players at all.

[Merlins]

North American HD DVD Promotional Group still tries to say that they have sold most number of players and have the best attach rate while selling less number of movies.

HD-DVD has got a little better numbers since last NPD Group report (52% for HD-DVD and 48% for Blu-ray back in January) but it's not a great victory for HD-DVD then you consider all those Playstation 3 that have been sold. HD-DVD Promotion group must calculate with them but they do not mention how they count them, with which effectiviness.

[Philnerd]

Originally Posted by HarakoMeshi

They aren't just giving attach rates for Blu-ray standalones. They are giving attach rate compared to all Blu-ray players including the millions of PS3s they pretend don't exist except when it serves their purpose.

Oh please, Disney counts each and every PS3 as a blu-ray player. They advertise it in their Home Media Magazine ads to show the "superiority" of blu-ray with a projected 8 million players to be sold by the end of 2007.