Blu-Ray, DVD win Black Friday sales

Blu-Ray remains the format of choice in the HD world, results from the week of Black Friday show. Data from Nielsen VideoScan reveals that of the HD discs bought during last week, 72.6 percent of them were Blu-Ray titles, leaving HD DVD at 27.4 percent. This is despite a massive influx of HD DVD players from Wal-Mart's $99 sale, and the success of particular titles such as Transformers. Simply by itself, the Blu-Ray version of Live Free or Die Hard sold nearly 100,000 copies, according to one Fox Home Entertainment executive.

Sales of regular DVDs, meanwhile, are still reported to have grown, with Nielsen indicating a bump of six percent over Thanksgiving 2006, and anonymous sources claiming that two major discount chains grew 16 and 18 percent. These figures may be skewed, however; while Nielsen tracks stores such as Best Buy and Target, it ignores Wal-Mart, which may account for as much as 40 percent of all DVD sales. Similarly, high trade in new releases was supplemented by extreme discounts on others, like a $6 pricetag for the popular 300. [via The Hollywood Reporter]

Filed under: industry
Other story tags: blu-ray, HD DVD, Wal-Mart, DVD, Black Friday, Nielsen, Thanksgiving