Digital sales revenue up 11% in Aus home entertainment market

Australian consumers of the home entertainment market are eagerly embracing digital services as video-on-demand streaming and downloads, and turning away from physical items as DVDs and Blu-ray.

Figures released by the Australian Home Entertainment Distributors Association (AHEDA) showed that revenue from digital sales grew by 11% last year. This growth was worth a record $164 million to the home entertainment market, which ADEDA valued at $1.115 billion last year, down from $1.202 billion in 2013.

The biggest driver of this expansion was the 26% jump in electronic sell-through (EST) of movies.

Revenues from the physical sector dropped by 10% from $1.059 billion to $951.3 million. TV series continue to be the biggest earners in DVDs and Blu-rays. They only slipped by 2%.

The second highest physical earner, library movies, fell 16%. New releases were down by 7%. The fall for direct to video sales was even more marked, at 19%. Blu-ray penetration in Australia struggles to climb over 16%.

AHEDA CEO Simon Bush predicted that the increase in players in the SVOD service – with Netflix to next month join the newly arrived Stan alongside Presto and Quickflix – would prove 2015 to be “an exciting year” as the home entertainment market continued to evolve. The figured showed that the SVOD market in Australia is worth $80 million.