It’s exactly
one
month before Black Friday 2009, and many experienced shoppers around the globe
and particularly in the US have already grown anxious in hopes of finding
interesting sale tidbits around the internet. According to research performed
by NPD Group, a consumer analyst market research panel of whom we participate with
occasionally, the Black Friday holiday shopping season this year could see first
generation Blu-ray players with basic functionality having viable selling points
as low as around $49.
The market for Blu-ray players has been experiencing a positive
incline ever since Toshiba and company’s highly acclaimed HD-DVD format faced a
super-sudden-death attack back at CES in January
2008. Nevertheless, the global Blu-ray market has yielded to higher
adoption rates and more affordability with even some of the more advanced feature-packed,
BD profile 2.0, HDMI 1.3a players going for as low as around $150
over the past few months. A retrospective view of current situation implies that
sales are thriving and consumers in the home entertainment market are adopting
the format at a steady rate. Despite the conflicting analytic debates of
yesteryear and a lack of multisource research data, we are positive that the
market this coming season will encourage adoption more than any other point in
the format’s history.
In a recent interview with
Video Business, Ross Rubin, NPD Group’s Director of Industry
Analysis, stated “it’s conceivable we could see a $49 Blu-ray player on Black
Friday, but I think we’ll see more $99 deals. Anything is possible. We’ve seen
very strong growth in Blu-ray players this year. It has been a bright spot in a
very gloomy industry landscape. Nearly all other electronics device categories
have been down, such as digital cameras and MP3 players.”
Rubin went on to add that Blu-ray unit sales currently make
up 15-percent of overall High Definition and Standard Definition home video
player purchases in the United States. At this rate, he expects unit sales to
hike to 50-percent in 2010 if current demand and pricing trends remain steady.
On another note, several manufacturers have been in talk
about selling off or significantly reducing back stock of older generation
players, particularly those sporting BD profiles 1.0 and 1.1. During Black
Friday, it is highly likely that these low-end, basic units will be the ones to
go for $99 and $49 respectively. Regardless of abundant feature support, we
expect that consumers will still adopt these older units as they converge their
library of movie collections into a single collection of high definition
Blu-ray titles or consolidate older DVD collections into the newer format as
the prices of older Blu-ray titles continue to decline and go on sale.
If this year is going to be anything like last year, Black
Friday in the states will consist of a mass majority of consumers picking up at
least 3 or 4 titles on Blu-ray, while a larger portion of them consume the aforementioned
back stock budget players and leave the store with giddy grins of happiness. It
will be interesting to see how the recession affects this year’s home theater sales
in comparison to the 2008 season right after market collapse. Regardless, it’s
going to be one hell of a campout for the experienced individuals and crowds.