If you’re looking to step up to Blu-ray or if you want to introduce someone else to the quality that the format provides, this holiday season my be the best time ever. NDP Group is reporting that Blu-ray hardware prices are continuing to drop, with many top name players available in the sub-$200 range. This points to great
holiday sales not only for these brands, which can compete with other consumer electronic devices such as the $199 Wii and other gaming devices, but for the lower quality store brands which some are saying are easily going to drop below $100 for the holidays and maybe even lower.
“We’ve seen very strong growth in Blu-ray players this year. It has been a bright spot in a very gloomy industry landscape,” said Ross Rubin, NPD director of industry analysis. “Nearly all other electronics device categories have been down, such as digital cameras and MP3 players.”
Rubin added that currently, Blu-ray unit sales make up 15% of overall U.S. high-definition/standard-definition home video player purchases. Yet he expects that will hike to 50% of unit sales in 2010 if current demand and pricing trends hold.
“The streaming products have been popular where they’ve accounted for a greater portion of the Blu-ray player units sold,” added Rubin.
Considering that some off-brand players are already dipping below the $100 range, Rubin added as well that $49 machines aren’t out of the question on Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year in the US.
You can bet that at $49 we’ll definitely see Blu-ray sales take off. I think the biggest hurdle will be ensuring that people know that the new format players can handle their current DVD collections. If the manufacturers can get that message across, we may just see Santa delivering more players this year than ever before.
via Video Business
