This week's Video Business includes a story from the National Association of Video Distributors annual conference indicating that most video distributors expect to see DVDs increase to about 70-75% of their sales by the end of 2003.  For 2002, Baker & Taylor sales were about 55% DVD, but during the fourth quarter DVDs were capturing some 60-65% of the sales.  Extrapolating from these trends and from first quarter sales in 2003, most of the distributors interviewed by Video Business indicated that a 75/25 breakdown would be about right for Q4 of 2003.

Since pop culture retailers are dealing with collectors, and the quality of DVDs is inherently better than VHS tapes, the switch to DVD has been much more rapid in that market.  Many anime companies have stopped releasing VHS tapes altogether, and now big online retailers such as Anime Castle are liquidating their VHS stock.  Only the biggest titles with huge TV exposure (e.g., DBZ) are still released in the VHS format, and by next year at this time, the triumph of the DVD format in anime may well be complete.