Nielsen VideoScan/Home Media Magazine: Blu-ray/DVD/HD DVD Stats (Updated Weekly)

[dr_ml422]

We're getting pretty long into the Blu-ray era and still it hasn't taken as expected. It will be good to see what happens if they ever decide to lower the prices on both the movies and anything else associated w/Blu-ray. Only Sony and time will tell. looks like DVD's are here to stay. At least for now anyway.

[admin]

Stats:

For the week ending 12th July 2009, here are the stats:

Percentage of Top 20 titles by disc volume:
Blu-ray vs DVD: 13% vs 87%

All sales by $ volume (Percentage of Total Sales):
Blu-ray sales up 50.61% compared to last week, total spending: $16.16 million (10.03%)
DVD sales up 0.5% compared to last week, total spending: $145.03 million (89.97%)

You can read the latest digital edition of HMM (July 20 Issue) with the above stats here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ques...J/?startpage=5

Top 10:

Knowing was this week's number one, selling almost twice as many copies as the second place title Push, which managed to sell three times as many as the third place title The Unborn.

Every other title in the top 10 were previous week's releases, including Gran Torino which is still doing well at 4th. The other titles were Transformers, Taken, 12 Rounds, Ghostbusters, The Dark Knight and Quantum of Solace.

Market Share:

Taken still leads the market share charts with 19.72%. Of this week's new releases, Knowing got a respectable 17.50%, just slightly below Push's 18.02%. The Unborn did less well at 12.90%.

The complete Top 20 best sellers and Blu-ray market share tables can be seen here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ques.../?startpage=13

[admin]

Stats:

For the week ending 19th July 2009, here are the stats:

Percentage of revenue:
Blu-ray vs DVD: 8.04% vs 91.96%

Blu-ray sales down 30.82% compared to last week, total spending: $11.18 million (8.04%)
DVD sales down 11.82% compared to last week, total spending: $127.89 million (91.96%)

You can read the latest digital edition of HMM (July 27 Issue) with the above stats here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ques....php?startid=2

Top 10:

The Haunting in Connecticut was this week's top title, but it barely beat last week's number one, Knowing. Mad Men Season 2 was third, which bodes well for TV on Blu-ray. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix jumped to 6th, possibly on the back of the new Harry Potter movie at the cinemas, which also helped the first five Harry Potter movie Blu-ray pack to also take a place in the top 10 (at 10th). That the top 10 charts are so easily affected by outside events such as cinema releases and promotions may suggest something about Blu-ray's volatility caused by the lack of strength and depth in the numbers. But that's to be expected for a new format.

The rest of the top 10 were all previous weeks' releases, including Push, Gran Torino, Taken, The Unborn and Transformers.

This is one of the poorer weeks for Blu-ray so far this year, but the same time last year also saw Blu-ray's lowest point.

Market Share:

Mad Men Season 2 led the market share charts with 21.73% market share, which is remarkably good for a TV show. Further research on Amazon.com showed that the Blu-ray version of this show is actually selling cheaper than the DVD version at the moment ($24.99 versus $33.99 for the DVD version), while both share the same retail pricing. This may go someway to explain why the Blu-ray version has sold so well.

Of this week's other new top 10 entries, The Haunting in Connecticut did not make the top 10. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix did make it at 7th and 15.11% market share.

The complete Top 20 best sellers and Blu-ray market share tables can be seen here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ques...php?startid=10

[admin]

Stats:

For the week ending 26th July 2009, here are the stats:

Percentage of revenue:
Blu-ray vs DVD: 16.11% vs 83.89%

Blu-ray sales up 214.94% compared to last week, total spending: $35.21 million (16.11%)
DVD sales up 43.33% compared to last week, total spending: $183.30 million (83.89%)

You can read the latest digital edition of HMM (August 3 Issue) with the above stats here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ques....php?startid=2

Top 10:

From one of the worst weeks of 2009, to one of the best week in the history of the format. It's all down to one title really, and that title is Warner Bros' Watchmen. I think it is somewhat appropriate that, given Warner was the eventual decider in the format war and still the king of Blu-ray releases in The Dark Knight, that apex of 2009 (for now) would again belong to another Warner title. Watchmen outsold the number two title Coraline by a 3 to 1 margin, and this is even more impressive considering that Coraline was itself a top selling Blu-ray title that outsold the third placed Knowing by a massive 9 to 1 margin.

Rounding out the top 10 of new to the list titles, 2001: A Space Odyssey was at 6th place, and there was a tie in 9th/10th place between 300: The Complete Experience and Blow.

The rest of the top 10 were titles from previous weeks, including last week's number one, The Haunting in Connecticut, at 5th. To further highlight just how well Watchmen did, it managed to outsell last week's number one by more than a 40 to 1 margin (that's not a misprint - fourty!). Ghostbusters was 4th while Gran Torino was 8th.

Market Share:

Watchmen continues to do superhuman feats in the market share charts, getting an amazing 35.52% of market share for the Blu-ray version. This means more than 1 in 3 copies of Watchmen sold were on Blu-ray. The week's number two title, Coraline also did well at 18.34%, the kind of first week market share you would normally expect. Watchmen is the first in a series of top profile releases for the rest of the year (Star Trek, Terminator 4, Transformers 2 ...), and it could signal a glimpse of things to come. There weren't many other new releases for the week, which was probably intentional just like there weren't many new releases during the week The Dark Knight was first made available to purchase.

Due to the way the market share charts were structured last year, I don't have the exact market share figures for The Dark Knight to compare with Watchmen, but the top 10 sales charts looks similarly top heavy (TDK outsold the number 2 title by 20:1). TDK did more business back then, as Blu-ray has over $60 million in sales that week (now revised to $47 million, due to a new calculation method, compared to "only" $35 million time time), but TDK's release was just before Christmas and would have been high even without TDK (the week prior to TDK's release saw $23 M in sales, compared to only $11 M in the week prior to Watchmen's release).

The complete Top 20 best sellers and Blu-ray market share tables can be seen here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ques...php?startid=10

[dr_ml422]

I am very surprised that Watchmen even sold that much. Personally, I felt it was 1 of the worst flics I've seen this year or last year. I t was virtually about 3 hrs. long and it really was nothing but a love story/drama/borderline historical action flic. I can't even categorize it. Goes to show what some are willing to pay for certain things. It takes all kinds to make a world.

I'm so thrown off by this stat that the whole statistical figures are for the first time confusing to me. I really don't see how it even comes close to Iron Man and definitely not even near The Dark Knight. Holiday or not. I really am surprised.

[admin]

Having done a bit more research, I might have found an explanation why the figures are inflated for the Blu-ray version. It may be this:

Watchmen: The End is Nigh The Complete Experience

It's the PS3 game for the movie, but it also includes the Blu-ray version of the movie in the same bundle, and so the stats from the sales may have counted towards the Blu-ray version as well, adding a hundred thousand sales to the figures. It's not a best seller on the PS3, far from it (it's Amazon rank is 900 something). And I don't know if this is counted in the Blu-ray stats or not (it shouldn't be).

This year's biggest releases on Blu-ray will be Star Trek, Transformers 2 and Terminator Salvation, possibly the new Harry Potter movie if it makes it in time for the holidays.

[dr_ml422]

It prolly was admin. That flic imho would no way of sold that much. I could see where in the game it would be cool to play because the action figures were ok. Especially the mind master guy. Forgot his name. Thnx for going the xtra yard to see though. I really was sure something other than Blu-ray itself was cooking. I just hoped it wasn't plain old inflated figures. That really would be a low point for Sony.

[admin]

Watchmen is the kind of movie that does attract the core Blu-ray demographic, male, young adults, probably owns a PS3 and likes action, sci-fi type movies (all the best sellers have been these kinds of movies, including several very "poor" ones such as Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li).

[dr_ml422]

I can understand that fully. Only thing it wasn't a total action or Sci-Fi flic. It was a long drawn out love story w/some action n sci-fi including the usual save the planet from itself by collateral damage theme. I could see where they would modify it in the game to really bring out the superhero action stuff. Just my observations , but most people where I saw it at were dosing off including myself. It was really long.

I could only see a 30 yr. old crowd getting into the ps3 factor, but not really the flic itself.

[autumnkid2000]

how are stats for dvd/blu-ray combo counted? I'm wondering what the turn-out would be regarding Disney's strategy of releasing the blu-ray/dvd combo of the Diamond Edition of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with the regular 2-disc DVD coming out seven weeks later. does a combo of the two formats contribute to the sales count of both?

[admin]

Good question autumnkid2000. I have no idea how they are counted, although I guess the fair way would be to count one each for either format, although I'm not sure how you would count revenue (50% each, or favoring one format over the other).

[dr_ml422]

Excellent question. Sounds like they're so desperate to continue pushing Blu-ray that they're manipulating their marketing strategy to obscure the total statistics. Although I have no idea why they would think doing such a thing would boost sales. The only ones following statistics like these are guys like us involved w/digital video/computer stuff and most likely anyone they do business with. Even the people they do business with though are smart enough to see a move like that though. Hopefully for their sake.

[admin]

Stats:

For the week ending 2nd August 2009, here are the stats:

Percentage of revenue:
Blu-ray vs DVD: 14.5% vs 85.5%

Blu-ray sales down 13.92% compared to last week, total spending: $30.31 million
DVD sales down 2.51% compared to last week, total spending: $178.70 million

You can read the latest digital edition of HMM (August 10 Issue) with the above stats here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ques....php?startid=3

Top 10:

Off the high of last week, but still a strong week for Blu-ray, despite Watchmen slipping to second place (and this may be because while it isn't the best selling Blu-ray title for this week, it still had a huge 36% sales ratio when compared to the DVD version). This week's number one title belongs to Fast & Furious, not to the confused with The Fast and The Furious, which was also in the top 10 at 6th. The former outsold Watchmen by a 3:1 margin, contributing greatly to the high Blu-ray sales this week.

Of this week's new to the top 10 include Green Lantern: First Flight at 5th, Battlestar Galactica: The Complete Series at 9th and a couple of older releases in V for Vendetta, Unforgiven (7th and 8th) and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button at 10th (of note is that the Blu-ray version is on sale at Amazon for much less than even the single disc DVD version of this movie).

The rest of the top 10 were all in previous week's lists, including Coraline and Taken at 3rd and 4th respectively.

Market Share:

There are some strong performances from top 10 best sellers in the market share top 10 as well, including Benjamin Button at over 61% (related to the discount I mentioned earlier in which the Blu-ray version is cheaper than the cheapest DVD version?). The Wrestler didn't make the top 10 in sales, but was still selling stronger on Blu-ray than on DVD with 53% market share. Taken at 46%, Slumdog at 43% and with Watchmen still in the low 30's, suggest strong sales for new releases that is partially driving high Blu-ray sales for this week, and perhaps some discounting of older titles like Slumdog and Benjamin Button account for the rest. Which goes to show that pricing is still key to Blu-ray's success, although it largely defeats the "higher profit" advantages of having a new format (other than to make people want to re-buy their movie collection).

Even The Fast and The Furious managed to get 27%, which is unheard of for a catalogue release. Of the new releases, Green Lantern did well at 21.55%, just slightly above the week's number 1 title Fast & Furious at 20.08%.

The complete Top 20 best sellers and Blu-ray market share tables can be seen here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ques...php?startid=11

[admin]

Stats:

For the week ending 9th August 2009, here are the stats:

Percentage of revenue:
Blu-ray vs DVD: 8.86% vs 91.14%

Blu-ray sales down 46.85% compared to last week, total spending: $16.11 million
DVD sales down 7.25% compared to last week, total spending: $165.75 million

You can read the latest digital edition of HMM (August 17 Issue) with the above stats here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ques....php?startid=3

Top 10:

Blu-ray sales back down to earth this week, following the last two week's exceptional results. This is mostly due to lack of hit new titles, most evident by the fact that Fast & Furious was still this week's number one title, although it only just barely outsold the week's number two title, Race to Witch Mountain. Watchmen slipped to third, although it stayed close to this week's top two titles.

After that, the sales slipped, with fourth place Obsessed only selling less than half the number of copies as Watchmen. Of this week's new to the top 10 titles, Big Trouble in Little China was 6th, followed by The Soloist.

The rest of the top 10 were all in previous week's lists, including Coraline at 5th, Taken at 8th, Ghostbusters and Knowing taking the last two spots.

Market Share:

The less fantastic results this week for Blu-ray has also been reflected in the market share charts, with the top title only getting 23.86% (Taken - the figure was still excellent for this title, which is no longer a new release). Race to Witch Mountain only managed 11.31%, well below what's expected of new release these days (of around 18%), and this title being the second most popular title of the week on Blu-ray, meant that overall, the Blu-ray market share wasn't as spectacular as previous week's. Fast & Furious was still doing well at 19%. The Soloist only managed 7.67%, and Obsessed even worse at only 6.23%, which suggest that big releases are still what's behind Blu-ray's recent success.

The complete Top 20 best sellers and Blu-ray market share tables can be seen here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ques....php?startid=9

[admin]

Stats:

For the week ending 16th August 2009, here are the stats:

Percentage of revenue:
Blu-ray vs DVD: 10.82% vs 89.18%

Blu-ray sales down 2.23% compared to last week, total spending: $15.75 million
DVD sales down 21.64% compared to last week, total spending: $129.88 million

You can read the latest digital edition of HMM (August 24 Issue) with the above stats here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ques....php?startid=2

Top 10:

I Love You, Man was this week's top Blu-ray seller, beating second place 17 Again by more than 2:1 in sales. Skipping straight to the 7th and 10th places, the other "new to the top 10" entries for this week were Batman Begins and Tim Burton's Corpse Bride.

The rest of the top 10 chart was filled with 10 top titles from recent weeks, starting at third with Watchmen, only a couple of points behind 17 Again. It was even more closely followed by Fast & Furious. Race to Witch Mountain, Coraline, Blow and V for Vendetta, at 5th, 6th, 8th and 9th places.

Market Share:

Batman Begins led the market share charts with 68%, suggesting some kind of discounting going on. Watchmen continue to do well at 29%. Of this week's new releases, "I Love You, Man" only managed 12.41%, but that's still better than 17 Again, which did not even enter the top 10 market share charts - so market share had to be below 6.37% or that because the Blu-ray version is actually a Blu-ray+DVD combo, it makes it quite difficult to calculate market share (since technically every Blu-ray sale equals one DVD sale, and so add that to the DVD only sales, Blu-ray's market share will be unfairly diluted). Tim Burton's Corpse Bride managed 24.91%, which is quite good for a catalogue release, and again suggests some kind of sale.

The complete Top 20 best sellers and Blu-ray market share tables can be seen here:

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/ques...php?startid=10