DEG: First Quarter Spending Continued to Stabilize in Q1

29 Apr, 2012 By: Stephanie Prange

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Home entertainment spending continued to stabilize in the first quarter of 2012 with overall consumer spending on rental and sellthrough of both packaged and digital media up 2.5% from the first quarter of 2011, to $4.45 billion, according to numbers released by DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group.

Once again, Blu-ray Disc was a major driver, with spending jumping 23% for the quarter. Catalog sales on Blu-ray Disc were up 27%, and TV on Blu-ray sales were up 54%.

Total household penetration of all Blu-ray compatible devices now stands at more than 40.8 million U.S. homes.

Total sellthrough spending — including packaged media and electronic sellthrough — was flat, up less than a percent at $2.22 billion. Packaged good sales were flat as well, through theatrical disc sales (DVD and Blu-ray combined) grew 2%.

Physical disc rental spending (minus streaming and VOD) fell 25% as Blockbuster and other physical rental stores shuttered in the quarter and Netflix lost disc customers. Subscription disc rentals fell nearly 50%. The lone physical rental winner, kiosk rentals, jumped 30% on the rise of Redbox.

On the digital side, the studio-backed UltraViolet cloud-based storage service grew to 2 million accounts in the quarter, DEG reported. Meanwhile, electronic sellthrough grew 17% to $165 million, and VOD nearly 7% to $505.3 million. Subscription streaming jumped a whopping 545% to $548.6 million. Total digital spending — including VOD, EST and subscription streaming — grew 74% to $1.2 billion.

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