‘Millions to buy Blu-ray within 6 months’

According to an NPD Group consumer research survey, they predict there to be significantly more Blu-ray player sales this year following the end of the format war.  Going by NPD, 10.8% of its survey respondents in a survey ending February 20th said they would buy a Blu-ray player within the next 6 months, the highest figure ever recorded since the HD disc format launched in 2006.  This is up from 8.3%, 8.9% and 9.4% on January 30th, February 6th and February 13th respectively, likely indicating that consumers were gaining confidence in the Blu-ray format during the weeks following Warner’s decision to drop support for HD DVD.

While NPD knows that these figures do not mean definite sales, they consider it impressive due to this being the usual time of year for a slowdown in consumer electronics.  Based on a common assumption that 25% of those saying they will buy a Blu-ray player within 6 months end up doing so, the research group estimate that 2 million Blu-ray players may be sold over the next six months.  While there is still less than one million standalone Blu-ray players sold to date, millions of PlayStation 3’s have also been sold, each effectively doubling up as a Blu-ray player.

Anyway, time will tell just how well Blu-ray eventually catches on and whether it will ever overtake DVD’s market share, particularly with IP TV ready to become a serious rival to Blu-ray.