In a report released last week, the National Association of Recording Merchandisers, the trade organization for record and music stores, announced that DVD sales surpassed sales of VHS in that channel for the first time in 2000.  Record store sales of DVDs in 2000 grew some 300% reaching a total of $1.87 billion, while VHS sales declined some 21% during the same period to $1.12 billion.  Sales of laserdiscs, today's equivalent of the 8-track tape, almost completely disappeared during 2000, totaling only $128,000.

 

The National Association of Recording Merchandisers said that the totals from their survey represented at least 80% of the record stores in the industry.  Total video sales in record stores grew by 47% to $2.99 billion, but still only represent about 11% of the total sales for record stores, which still derive 40% of their gross dollar volume from music sales.  A portion of the growth in overall video sales is due to the higher price of DVDs versus VHS tapes.  The average price of a video sale grew some 22% to $21.04, clearly reflecting the increasing prominence of DVD.

 

Given the accelerating pace of DVD sales in 2001 it is clear that these sales trends will only intensify in 2001.  Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon recently totaled  $30 million in sales in just its first week of release (see 'Crouching Tiger DVD Boffo'), and with a number of high profile releases set for the fall (see 'Phantom Menace DVD Bows in October'), DVDs are sure to set all kinds of new records during 2001.  The fact that record stores, whose bread and butter is not video, were able to increase video sales by 47% by embracing the DVD format should encourage pop culture retailers to do likewise.