Considering it’s now the only major HD disc format on the market these days, it’s probably inevitable that consumers would become more aware of its existence as time goes by. But only recently has a majority of U.S. households come to know exactly what a Blu-ray Disc is. That’s probably not too surprising, considering the percentage of American households with either Blu-ray or now-defunct HD DVD players is still below 10 percent, according to new study by research firm Interpret. (That percentage includes PlayStation 3 game consoles with internal Blu-ray drives.)
The Santa Monica, Calif.-based firm finds that about 60 percent of U.S. consumers are now aware of Blu-ray, which is “up from zero two years ago, when the format was still in the talking stages,” an Interpret executive told Reuters.
Perhaps making that percentage a bit more significant is that the survey was conducted back in January, before Toshiba officially ended the next-gen disc format war by abandoning its beloved HD DVD proposed standard. While the 60 percent figure is attributed to consumers ages 18 to 54, among males 18 to 34 Blu-ray awareness grows to 76 percent.
Interpret says it numbers show that ownership of HD television sets (required to enjoy Blu-ray products) is now at 39 percent of America’s nearly 114 million TV households. (By comparison, when the standard DVD format began growing more than a decade ago, it started out with analog TV home penetration closer to 100 percent.)
Overseas, Blu-ray awareness is lower than in America. It’s 56 percent in Great Britain; 49 percent in Germany; 45 percent in Japan and only 30 percent in France.
