Blu-ray adoption rates have slowly but surely risen since the format's rocky start in 2006. A new study by researchers at In-Stat predicts no slowdown for the high-definition media in the near future. By 2015, they believe manufacturers will ship 105 million Blu-ray players. The Blu-ray recorder business will also boom, nearly supplanting once cutting-edge DVD recorders in that same year.
Norm Bogen, vice president of digital entertainment at In-Stat, elaborated on the changing of the guard.
"DVD players and recorder shipments will decline over the next five years for most regions," said Bogen. "By 2015, DVD recorders will be essentially phased out entirely, with only negligible shipments to Japan."
Japan's Blu-ray recorder adoption rate overshadowed all over regions, revealed In-Stat. The country has quickly become the primary market for the devices. Europeans remain stalwart DVD recorder buyers, but if the researcher group's analysis is correct they'll soon need to move on.
DVD sales have similarly suffered. A May study by SNL Kagan showed DVD shipments had dropped nearly 44 percent in 2010.
A growing trend toward online streaming among consumers with access to cheaper, larger memory solutions could also impact both DVD and Blu-ray recorder sales, warned Bogen.
"Blu-ray recorders will replace DVD recorders, and many consumers of recorders will even drop the physical disk media option altogether and instead opt for a player with a large hard drive or a DMS in which to store DLNA-certified and other digital video content," he said.
