4K Ultra HD TVs Show Dramatic Sales, Exceed 1.5 Million Units in the Quarter

4K Ultra HD Disc Sales Outpace Blu-ray Disc Sales Twofold in the Same Period of Early Launch

April 29, 2016

Consumer spending on home entertainment was stable for the first quarter of 2016 compared to the year earlier period, but outperforming the box office.

Notably, consumers have purchased more than seven million 4K UHD TVs to date in the brief period since the product came to market, sparking strong demand for content for the next generation TVs.

Among the highlights for first quarter 2016:

• Total U.S. home entertainment spending was nearly $4.6 billion for the first quarter, flat over the same period 2015 and outpacing the box office value on video release by nearly 10 percentage points.
• 4K Ultra HD players launched in the U.S. market and were quickly purchased.** With 26 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray releases available in the first quarter, 4K Ultra HD discs experienced impressive sales with consumers buying more than 80,000 discs in their first weeks of launch. This number is two times that of Blu-ray Discs sales in its first weeks of launch.
• More than 1.5 million 4K Ultra HD TVs sold in the first quarter, up 210 percent, bringing the total number of sets sold to date exceeding seven million.
• VOD platforms continued to grow in the period, up seven percent for the quarter, and reversing the downward trends seen in early 2015.
• Subscription VOD (SVOD) had strong growth with a 19 percent rise for the first quarter over the first quarter of 2015.
• EST growth slowed to four percent in the quarter due to a smaller slate of new releases but continues to see robust catalog growth.
• HDTV penetration is now approaching the number of U.S. households. The DEG estimates that nearly 95 percent - 104 million - of all U.S. homes have at least one HDTV. All Blu-ray playback devices (including set-tops and game consoles) are in more than 84 million U.S. households***.

* Please note, these numbers are preliminary. Final numbers will be available in late May. Please contact the DEG for an updated version.

** With only one manufacturer in the market place, the DEG cannot report sales figures.

*** This is a restatement adjusting for duplication rate and cross-device ownership calculations for all Blu-ray Disc set-top players and game consoles.