In a short-term trend that Blu-ray Disc proponents can't be too happy about, the 1080p disc format's share of the video-disc pie has shrunk from the low teens in recent weeks to a 9-percent share in its latest measurement period — the second week in February.
While price points on Blu-ray titles and players (which are backwards-compatible with standard DVD titles) have grown steadily lower in recent months, so, too, have standard DVD prices on mostly older titles — often reaching below $10 at such retailers as Target, Walmart and Amazon.com.
For the week end Feb. 14, Blu-ray's 9 percent of sales amounted to revenue of just over $20 million, while standard DVD's share was nearly $193 million. Nevertheless, Blu-ray sales showed a jump of about 87 percent over the same week last year, while standard DVD titles sales deflated nearly 7 percent over mid-February 2009, according to Home Media Research.
Overall, all video-disc revenues for the same week were $213 million, down 2.2 percent over a year ago.
