Marvel’s The Avengers topped the home entertainment sales chart for 2012.
The Digital Entertainment Group used CES 2013 to look back at another successful year in home entertainment, although one that has seen major shifts, in part, to the proliferation of smartphones and tablets like those on display in Las Vegas. Resilience, adaptability and innovative delivery channels characterized the home entertainment industry in 2012. Total consumer spending on home entertainment topped $18 billion for the year.
The industry’s highest margin businesses, Blu-ray Disc, electronic sell-through (EST), and video on demand (VOD), continued to grow during every quarter of the year. Further, in just over a year since its launch, UltraViolet has achieved significant milestones in industry and consumer adoption and is rapidly becoming an integral part of the home entertainment landscape. The increased availability of content, along with a broader range of UltraViolet-enabled services and platforms in the marketplace, contributed to an enormous boost in EST spending for the year.
Blu-ray Disc spending rose nearly 10 percent for the year. Consumers have clearly adopted Blu-ray as the standard for home entertainment viewing, with spending on Blu-ray catalog titles jumping 25 percent for the year.
Consumers also increasingly purchased their entertainment via EST. Consumer spending on EST climbed 35 percent compared to 2011. Total digital distribution spending, EST and VOD combined, grew 28 percent for the same period. Total digital now accounts for nearly 30 percent of the domestic home video market, up from 19 percent compared to 2011.
