Kyle SGMS used our newssubmit (again ) to tell us that according to an article on Yahoo! DVD rentals for the first quarter hit a record $633.7 million, more than double the levels of a year ago:
While rentals of traditional VHS videocassettes continued to overshadow DVDs, grossing $1.5 billion in the first quarter, VHS saw its share of home video rentals decline from last year while DVD market share gained, according to the Video Software Dealers Association (VSDA).
A spokeswoman for the VSDA, which monitors the home video rental market based on actual transactions, attributed the decline to a continued sluggish economy.
Still, the $633.7 million grossed by DVDs rentals alone during the most recent quarter marked a new benchmark for the increasingly popular digital video disc format that was introduced five years ago.
That figure surpasses the previous record of $455.8 million set in the fourth quarter of 2001 and the $569.8 million grossed over the entire year 2000.
A comparison of first-quarter market share shows that DVDs more than doubled to 29.2 percent while VHS declined to just under 71 percent.
"I'd say DVD is definitely driving video demand," said Brad Hackley, VSDA director of research.
No real surprise of course since nowadays most households have a DVD-player. And besides that most DVD discs have nice extra's and aren't that expensive anymore compared to VHS tapes.
Source: Yahoo! News
