NPD: Blu-ray Player Sales Up 53% in Black Friday Week

During Black Friday week, Blu-ray players were among the hottest consumer technology items. The NPD Group has reported that BD player sales volume surged by 53% from the same period in 2008, surpassed only by computers (up 63%) and camcorders (55%). No information of revenue or average player price was given at this point.

Total CE revenue for the week of Black Friday was slightly more than $2.7 billion, down 1.2% from 2008. However, that decline was an improvement over the 3.4% fall between 2007 and 2008.

Unit volume sales of flat-panel TVs increased by 15%, but the high level of discounting (with average selling price $535, or 20 percent less than a year ago) meant revenues dropped by 9%.

“Consumers came out this year because there were deals to be had -- the same reason they have been shopping for electronics all year,” said Stephen Baker, NPD's vice president of industry analysis. “What made Black Friday different this year is how aggressive those price cuts were. This year retailers and manufacturers knew it wasn't going to be about increasing revenue, it needed to be about getting consumers excited to shop and moving those products out of the stores.”

In turn, computer hard drive sales rose 33%, GPS units increased by 15%, and both point-and-shoot cameras as well as multi-function printers posted zero growth versus 2008.