DVD Boom
By year’s end, 10 per cent of Belgian families (some 430,000 family units) will own a DVD player. According to a survey carried out by GfK Marketing Services, 125,000 DVD readers were sold in 2001 and 100,000 during the first six months of 2002 alone, with the end-of-year forecast for 250,000 units. Although unexpected, this upward swing is partly due to a 30 per cent cut in the retail price of DVD players. If the DVDs that are incorporated in PCs and videogames consoles are added, DVD now occupies a 20 per cent to 25 per cent niche of the home video market.
According to CVF (the Belgian Video Federation), the increase in sales of films in the DVD format also contributed to these results and this year, for the very first time, DVD sales exceeded those of VHS.
Last month a new Internet DVD rental service, managed by Zenobe Home Entertainment, came online in Flanders and the Netherlands. In return for a Euros 30 monthly fee, subscribers can access 700 of the 2800 films currently available in those countries. The films are consigned and reconsigned (free of charge) by post and the service is modelled on America’s Netflix which numbers over 700,000 rental subscribers.
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