Report: Blu-ray player sales triple on Black Friday week

Make no mistake—Blu-ray still has a long way to go before it can catch up with DVD player sales. Still, on a week when the average Blu-ray deck sold for just $200 or so, consumers came out and struck while the iron was hot.

Video Business (via Engadget HD) reports that on Thanksgiving week (which, of course, includes Black Friday), consumers snapped up about 147,000 Blu-ray players, spending more than $30 million in the process—a figure that doesn't include the Blu-ray equipped PlayStation 3.

That's triple the amount of revenue retailers saw from Blu-ray players on the previous week, when decks were selling for an average of $240, Video Business reports.

Naturally, the main reason for the spike was that some popular Blu-ray players—including the Sony BDP-S350 and the Samsung BD-P1500—were selling for about $199 each on Black Friday. Both are back up to about $249 now, although as I blogged last week, some sub-$200 Blu-ray decks are still on sale at Best Buy, Target, and Wal-Mart.

Still, according to the Video Business report, only about one in four "video-disc players" purchased during Thanskgiving week were Blu-ray players—and unless LaserDisc players had a sudden resurgence that I missed, that means DVD decks (reportedly selling for an average of just $40 each) are still outselling Blu-ray by a wide margin.

Some other interesting statistics from the same Video Business article: Research firm DisplaySearch expects about 3.84 million Blu-ray players to be sold in 2009—a 76-percent spurt—while DVD deck sales will drop 24 percent, though still accounting for some 14 million units.

Also: Every time I write about Blu-ray player prices, I get an avalanche of complaints about Blu-ray disc prices (and believe me, I don’t blame you), which are still going for about $30. Well, Video Business has a report about this as well, and the news isn't good: Basically, wholesale prices for new Blu releases continue to hover in the $25 range (compared to $17.99 for new DVDs), with retailers and distributors still "experimenting" with price tags. ("It's a wild west attitude," one Blu-ray buyer told Video Business. Greaaaaat.) The secret? Shop online (pssst: try Amazon), where you'll find many recent Blu-ray movies selling with steep discounts—50 percent or more, in some cases.

Related:
Blu-ray player sales triple Black Friday week [Video Business, via Engadget HD]