U.S. Digital Sales Rise, Consumer Spending on Home Entertainment Flat

LOS ANGELES: Consumer spending on home entertainment rose 2 percent in Q2 year-on-year to $4.03 billion, according to the latest quarterly report from the Digital Entertainment Group (DEG), led by an increase in digital sales.

Total home entertainment spending for the first six months of 2014 came in at an estimated $8.58 billion, down less than 1 percent from the $8.65 billion consumers spent in the first half of the prior year. Disc sales continued to decline; consumer spending on Blu-ray and DVD purchases in the first six months was down 8.2 percent to $3.26 billion. Electronic sell-through, dubbed Digital HD, jumped 37 percent in the first half of the year, reaching $671.4 million. That was enough to boost the entire sell-through category to $3.93 billion, down just 2.8 percent on the year-ago figures.

Consumer spending on SVOD, such as Netflix streaming, was up by more than 26 percent in the first half of 2014, to $1.91 billion. Total digital spending—SVOD, a la carte VOD and electronic sell-through—rose 16.7 percent to an estimated $3.6 billion.