Negative DVD article says that worldwide DVD player sales are now expected to be "only" 1 million units this year. I thought that was the original forecast?...........................
newsbytes.com
DVD Sales Yet To Take Off After One Year
****DVD Sales Yet To Take Off After One Year 10/31/97 TOKYO,
JAPAN, 1997 OCT 31 (NB) -- By Martyn Williams. A year on from
its commercial launch, the DVD-Video market remains lackluster and
accurate sales figures very hard to come by. DVD sales began on November 1, 1996, when
Toshiba Corporation [TOKYO:6502] and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd.
[TOKYO:6752], better known by it's Panasonic brand-name, launched, between them, three
models of DVD-Video players in Japan.
Sales of the machines followed in the United States, in March. They had been due to begin
before Christmas 1996 but a lack of software titles led manufacturers to delay the launch. They
were worried that a slow start to sales of the players would gain it the failure label.
Later this year, in August, sales officially began in most of Asia. European consumers are yet to
see an official launch as manufacturers are still trying to decide on an audio system to use. US
and Japanese machines use the Dolby AC-3 surround system but Philips wants MPEG-2
digital audio to be the European standard. It looks like it will be, but an awaited final decision
means no players and no software until something is decided.
Different stories are being told about the current DVD-Video market by different
manufacturers but one thing is for sure, the slow and fragmented start to sales of both hardware
and software means most projections won't be fulfilled until a year or two after the
manufacturer's original plans.
A spokeswoman for Matsushita Electric told Newsbytes, "To the end of September, our
cumulative production of video players was 400,000 units." She added that some of those
players were for OEM customers.
The total size of the DVD-Video market is estimated to be around one million units this year,
she said. The company estimates the player-only market to reach 80 million by 2,000 and the
for DVD, including software, to become a five trillion yen ($41.5 billion) market by 2,000.
Toshiba said today that it estimated the Japanese DVD-Video player market to be between
200,000 and 300,000 units this year. In the United States, the company predicted
industry-wide sales of around 600,000 units or more, if the Christmas season was good.
"Toshiba is now producing 30,000 units per month for the world market," said a company
spokesman. "We are particularly strong in the U.S. market with a 40 percent market share. In
Japan, we're sharing the market with Pioneer and Matsushita."
In summer 1996, when it announced its first DVD-Video players, the company said, "A surge
in interest in DVD is now expected, and worldwide demand for DVD- related hardware,
including ROM and RAM drives and video players, is expected to reach 120 million units in
2000. Add software and applications, and DVD is expected to yield a multi-trillion-yen
market."
Today, the spokesman told Newsbytes, "To put it briefly, we slipped on the forecast by one
year, so we're now predicting that for 2001." He said, the company anticipates the
DVD-ROM and RAM markets to be worth $16 billion, DVD-Video to be $8 billion and
DVD-Audio to be $4 billion in 2001. By that time, the software market is expected to be
worth $120 billion.
"The amount of software is steadily picking up. In Japan, there were 260 titles in September
and we expect 500 by the end of 1997. In the United States, there are 200 now and should be
500 by the end of the year," the spokesman added.
(19971031/Reported By Newsbytes News Network: newsbytes.com
/DVDVEX/PHOTO)
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