Sony Pictures Home Entertainment vice president for Asia-Pacific Tim Meade on Friday announced market reports that lead him to believe sales of Blu-ray movie discs will outnumber standard DVDs sometime in 2011. Meade went on to say global sales of movies on the two disc formats will be split around 60 percent in favor of the standard-definition DVD format by 2010, with the high-definition media eking out an advantage one year later.
By the end of 2008, Blu-ray movie disc sales will grow to 25 percent, up from 20 percent in mid-2008 and just 9 percent at the end of last year, Meade said. Not only is this due to the fact that the amount of movie titles released on Blu-ray discs keeps growing, but also thanks to the increasing sales of Blu-ray players, which is expected to account for 15 percent of the entire video player market by the end of 2008. Last year, Blu-ray players accounted for nearly 10 percent of the market, and sales in the US and Europe have grown by 400 and 600 percent, respectively, in the first half of 2008.
In North America, Sony Pictures releases 122 of the 650 movies available on the only remaining high-definition disc format, while the respective Asian numbers are 84 and 130.
Source: electronista
