Video streaming services might be losing subscribers and getting more expensive, but they are still the future of home entertainment. Here's more proof: sales of video discs continue to drop, according to US statistics released by VideoScan / MediaPlayNews (via flatpanelshd).
Ultra HD Blu-ray is taking a larger share of that market, but there's no getting around the fact the market is shrinking. UHD Blu-rays accounted for 13.4 per cent of all video discs sold in the US in the second quarter of 2022 – that's the highest since the format launched.
But this growth comes at the expense of regular Blu-ray discs.
UHD and standard Blu-rays account for almost 50 per cent of the US market. The rest are DVDs.
Monetarily speaking, US video disc sales amounted to $3.29 billion in 2019, $2.45 billion in 2020 and $1.97 billion in 2021. The first quarter of 2022 saw this drop another 19 per cent. Plot these figures on a graph and you can see where this might be headed.
Still, never say never. Vinyl and even CDs have made something of a comeback, though admittedly both formats are still far from their peak. Could video discs see a similar resurgence? Let us know in the comments below.
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