The World is Blu

According to a report by Media Control GfK International regarding international high definition sales during the first half of the year, Blu-ray is benefiting from a nearly 3:1 sales advantage in non-US countries. The report states that 650,000 movies were sold on the Blu-ray format the first two quarters, compared to only 240,000 on HD DVD. While these numbers are easily dwarfed by US sales (which reported earlier as 2.2M units), this report does show that worldwide, Blu-ray is the dominant format. There are many reasons to account for lower high definition sales internationally, including cost of hardware and availability of software. As these two issues are resolved, expect Blu-ray numbers to catch up with the US, and eventually, surpass it.