The Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA) released their D2 Report: Discs & Digital The Business of Home Entertainment Retailing. They indicate that physical media is still the primary choice for consumers of home entertainment, with DVD and Blu-ray Disc sales totaling $17.9 billion in sales for 2009 (nine times the revenue generated by digital distribution channels).
“While there has been a great deal of focus recently on the slippage of revenues in the DVD market, the untold story is that consumers embrace of home entertainment remains very strong and packaged media is the preferred delivery instrument,” noted Bo Andersen, President and CEO of EMA. “Digital distribution is clearly an important segment of the home entertainment market and will continue to grow in market share in the coming year. While it is tempting for industry outsiders to say disc is dead, as the saying goes, reports of its demise are grossly exaggerated.”
The D2 Report also says that consumer transactions for pre-recorded content grew by 2.8 percent in 2009. Also, 80 percent to 90 percent of paid video game software acquisitions were on physical media.
