When the Blu-ray storage technology was developed and introduced to the IT industry, it was obvious that its much higher storage capacity and ability to store video in Full-HD quality made it significantly superior to the DVD. However, even four years after its development, the technology has still not become mainstream. Nevertheless, In-Stat predicts that 2010 will be the year when Blu-ray finally begins to take the place of DVDs on the mainstream market.

Even though the storage and multimedia possibilities enabled by Blu-ray disks substantially surpass those of DVDs, the former were, at least at first, quite a bit more expensive. This allowed the latter to keep its role as the main video-playback solution at home, with Blu-ray players sluggishly dragging themselves forward. In 2009, however, high-volume shipments of Blu-ray players, especially those with network connectivity, tripled. This was allowed by their increased affordability and the growing importance of network connectivity (which many such players are now built with), by means of which additional multimedia content could be accessed.

“In North America, significant price drops of Blu-ray players drove unit shipments to triple in 2009. The cost differential between standard definition DVD and Blu-ray is becoming much smaller and new features such as IP/network connectivity are becoming increasingly important. Blu-ray is finally starting to make significant advances market,” Michelle Abraham, an In-Stat analyst, said.

Currently, Europe is the strongest market for Blu-ray players, whereas Japan is at the top when it comes to Blu-ray recorders. Strong supporters of Blu-ray media playback and storage solutions are companies such as Sumplus, Zoran, MediaTek, Broadcom and NEC.

In-Stat believes that shipments of Blu-ray units, whether recorders or players, will reach 80 million by 2013, not very far behind the 90 million shipments predicted for DVD players. Even despite this, however, the Blu-ray player revenue will be more than four times larger than that from DVDs.