Australian DVD sales outrun VHS - News - Business

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Australian DVD sales outrun VHS

By Andrew Colley, 0
April 04, 2002
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/business/soa/Australian-DVD-sales-outrun-VHS/0,139023166,120264404,00.htm

Australian sales of DVD titles are booming, starting to outsell VHS for the first time according to local consumer monitor, GFK Marketing Services.

Unit sales of DVD content grew almost 200 percent over the 2000 to 2001 period and surpassed VHS for the first time in February 2002.

During the 2000 period Australian retailers sold around 1.4 million titles on the DVD format. Over the 2001 period that figure had reached 4.2 million, prompting Roadshow Entertainment to describe the rate of growth as "phenomenal".

Growth of VHS titles has been much flatter, at 5.3 percent.

According to GFK spokesperson Darrin Parker, the value of movie titles sold in the DVD format has been competitive with VHS for some time, but February sets a new trend.

"We're now seeing DVD outsell VHS in unit sales," Parker said.

"That'll be an ongoing trend from now on where DVD will outsell VHS," he added.

Parker said that DVD format, which had only managed to dominate the movie segment of the home entertainment market, now competes with VHS in every genre.

Sales of musical and children's titles in DVD format are exhibiting enormous growth rates, he said.

Contributing to the disc format's success has been a reduction in their price. "DVDs used to cost around AU$35 as opposed to $AU20 for VHS title," said Parker. "But now there's AU$20 DVDs out there they're competing on price level as well".

GFK estimates that there are currently 1 million DVD players in Australian households.