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Europe's DVD revenues will hit $17bn in 2009, In-Stat says

The value of DVD sales and rental markets in the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain was about $9.3bn during 2004, and will grow to nearly $17bn in 2009, according to In-Stat’s latest report Electronic Entertainment Major Markets In Europe.

Sales and rentals of DVD "packaged goods" will be the key growth driver for electronic entertainment in the five largest European countries, with locally-produced content representing the fastest growing DVD segment.

Also, consumers in these five major European markets are migrating away from traditional analogue broadcasting to digital pay-TV services, but free-to-air digital terrestrial services will show the strongest growth rates. The number of households receiving digital terrestrial services in these markets will jump from 4.9 million in 2004 (4.1% of TV households) to 23.7 million in 2009 (20%), the high-tech market research firm says.

“New digital delivery services such as digital terrestrial and IP-TV are not likely to supplant the DVD business, but rather bring digital entertainment to people by adding either convenience, mobility, or improved accessibility,” says Gerry Kaufhold, In-Stat analyst.

In-Stat has also found that growth of Cable TV will be flat to slightly negative while Satellite TV services will pick up about 6 percentage points.

On the Home Media Networking front, In-Stat forecasts that total media networking connections in homes will grow from over 50 million in 2005 to over 200 million in 2009 worldwide, a 29% compound annual growth rate. Much of the growth will be driven by PC vendors, who are rolling out Media Center PCs that fit the living room in terms of style and function.

Despite the market's growth, many technical issues will continue to persist. For example, the next-generation wireless standard, 802.11n, has not been finished and will not be complete until 2006.

Outside of the technical readiness of the standards enabling media networking, there is still the need to create the awareness and demand for these products among end users.

Story filed 10 March 2005