US digital home entertainment market grew 14% in 2022, DVD/BD down 20%

10 Feb 2023 | Rasmus Larsen |

Consumer spending on digital home entertainment continued up in 2022 and the total home entertainment market is now more than 5 times bigger than the theatrical market in the US. Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick may be popular in theaters but the box office is still struggling and is dwarfed by the home entertainment market that in 2022 brought in over $36.5 billion dollars in the US alone, of which roughly $2.1 billion come from DVD/Blu-ray discs (sell-through and rentals) and the rest from digital/online services.

Sell-Thru packaged	Sales of DVD, Blu-ray and UHD Blu-ray discs
VOD	Video-on-demand, digital titles priced for rental
PVOD	Premium video-on-demand, rental or sales in an early home entertainment window
EST	Electronic sell-through, digital titles priced for sale
SVOD	Subscription video-on-demand, a monthly fee to access content, i.e. Netflix
Box office	Revenue from ticket sales in theaters

- "Overall U.S. consumer spending across digital and physical home entertainment formats in 2022 was more than $36.5 billion, an 11.4 percent increase from the almost $33 billion consumers spent in 2021, driven by a raft of strong franchise properties coming from theaters and television," the Digital Entertainment Group (DEG) wrote in its 2022 report. "Consumers spent $34.5 billion on digital entertainment purchases (EST), rentals (VOD) and subscriptions for the full year, a jump of 14 percent over full year 2021. Spending on subscription streaming rose more than more than 17 percent for full year 2022, topping $30 billion." On top of that, but not included in the chart below, is almost $17 billion in ad revenue from ad-supported video streaming services and streaming channels.

Table: DEG

20% growth in UHD Blu-ray sales

The DEG noted that while the overall DVD/Blu-ray market is down, a surge in new theatrical releases after the covid period led to notable growth in sales of UHD Blu-ray discs. - "The surge in theatrical new releases in the first three quarters also benefited premium physical formats, with spending on 4K UHD Blu-ray titles ending the year with 20 percent growth," said the DEG. Some of the most popular UHD Blu-ray releases last year were The Batman, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Jurassic World: Dominion, Spider-Man: No Way Home and Top Gun: Maverick. Also see: 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray database Data compiled by Yoeri Geutskens for his Ultra HD Blu-ray twitter channel illustrates how UHD Blu-ray is capturing a larger share of the declining video disc market in the US – a trend that accelerated in 2022.