Blu-ray is Penetrating the Market

The Blu-ray Disc Association was proud to announce its successes in growth throughout 2008. With the growing number of HDTV sets in homes, it’s only natural that consumers are looking for content to drive all those new pixels.

Blu-ray Disc promotions group chairman Andy Parsons cited DisplaySearch numbers, claiming that 10.7 million players have sold since the launch of the format. Parsons added that this number doubles DVD’s progress at the same point in the format’s life.

“A lot of people think of DVD as an overnight success, but actually if you look back, we have some data from CEA market research that shows three years into the launch of DVD 5.4 million players had shipped into the U.S. market. So if you are comparing DVD to Blu-ray we are actually looking at a considerably larger number of players that have shipped in only 2.5 years into the life of Blu-ray, so we are doing quite well.”

Of course, the 10.7 million figure includes PlayStation 3 consoles, which is still the Blu-ray player most consumers own. With prices on stand-alone machines dropping as low as $99, however, expect the scales to tip the other way throughout 2009.

Overall, 2008 saw three times as many Blu-ray Disc players sold when compared against 2007.