The home entertainment market is now seven times bigger than the box office in the US, but it’s not disc sales that are benefiting. That’s according to a report from Digital Entertainment Group (DEG) and market research firm Omdia.
FlatpanelsHD reported that while the home entertainment market hit $57.17 billion last year, disc sales have gone down to below $1 billion. On top of that, Blu-ray discs sales have declined every year since 2018. That feeds into a larger trend we have seen in the last few years where DVD and Blu-ray sales have dropped.
More and more brands are opting out of 4K Blu-ray player production, with LG being the latest to stop making the product. And just last year, the US mega-retailer Target announced that it would stop selling DVD and Blu-ray discs in-store by 2025.
It’s not good news for the US box office, either, as cinema visits went down by around 16 per cent.
The DEG said that collectables were able to break free from this growing trend, with 4K UHD releases remaining stable and Steelbooks sales growing. We can only hope that means the appetite is still there for physical media.
On the other side of the coin, the home entertainment market is mainly being driven by subscription streaming services such as Disney+, Apple TV+, Max and Netflix.
In the UK, the picture is a little less clear with contrasting reports coming out over the state of disc sales at the moment. Unfortunately, though, it feels pretty safe to assume it is a similar story to the US.
We are big fans of discs at What Hi-Fi?, partly because of the excellent sound and picture quality you get from a 4K Blu-ray compared to streaming. And that’s not to mention the joy of holding a physical disc in your hands and knowing it’s yours forever. There is not the underlying concern that the movie you buy on a streaming platform won't always remain in your possession. Fingers crossed the increasing popularity of Steelbooks indicates that movies on disc won’t ever go away entirely, but there’s no denying that the future looks rather bleak at this stage.
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