High-Def DVD Player Sales Rising?
Toshiba's new low price is getting consumers' attention.
By Swanni
That's according to an article by Video Business, which reports that both Blu-ray and HD DVD players have sold well early in the holiday season.
But the decision by Wal-Mart and Best Buy to sell Toshiba's HD-A2 for $99 during a pre-Black Friday sale triggered new consumer interest in the category.
“If nothing else, Wal-Mart making the Toshiba player $99 got a lot of airplay, and people are asking what is HD DVD?,” Bjorn's COO, Doug Bravin, told Video Business. “They started to make it mainstream.”
After the special $99 sale, many retailers set the price of the entry-level Toshiba player under $200, which is roughly $200 off the lowest-priced Blu-ray player.
Still, Bravin said Bjorn's did equal business with Blu-ray and HD DVD players, crediting Blu-ray's new "I Do Blu" advertising campaign.
But Rick Souder, Crutchfield's executive vice president of merchandise, said Toshiba's lower price made the difference. (Crutchfield set the player's price at $129).
“The Wal-Mart thing and other indicators show that people aren’t hung up on the format as much as they are about price,” said Souder. “We sold out of every (Toshiba HD-A2) that we had at $129. People are willing to make that level of investment, but they didn’t seem willing to spend $399 and $499.”
The HD DVD North American Promotional Group said last week that 750,000 HD DVD players (including XBox 360 adapters) have been sold to date. That includes a big boost in the early days of the holiday season when the player's price was slashed to under $200.
Blu-ray standalone player sales are unknown, but they are estimated to be far less than HD DVD. (However, Blu-ray is in more homes because Sony's PlayStation 3 has a Blu-ray player inside.)
Bjorn's, says Video Business, reports that high-def DVD players represented 15 percent of its DVD business last year. But this year that number jumped to 50 percent.
"People are becoming aware of next-generation and high-def content as it relates to HD DVD and Blu-ray,” Matt Duda, director of merchandising at Ultimate Electronics, told Video Business. “You can credit Wal-Mart for raising that awareness certainly. And more people are seeing advertising on TV for HD DVD and Blu-ray. New releases now say they are also available in HD DVD and Blu-ray, and that gets people asking questions about them.”
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