: Toshiba announced yesterday that more than 100,000 family-room HD DVD players have been sold within the first year of the technology’s launch.
That number puts HD DVD in the lead over the competing Blu-ray format, if only CE players are considered. Manufacturers of Blu-ray players have not released official sales figures so far, but is generally believed to be lagging HD DVD.
The North American HD DVD Promotional Group said that CE sales do not include sales of Microsoft’s HD DVD drive for the Xbox 360, which is considered to be the best selling HD DVD player currently on the market.
A good reason for ignoring the Microsoft HD DVD drive sales figures may have been the fact that this scenario would have forced the group to include the overwhelming sales numbers of the PS3’s Blu-ray drive: According to Nexgenwars.com, Sony has sold about 2.
8 million PS3s and Blu-ray drives so far.
The battle between the HD DVD and Blu-ray camps will be heating up throughout the year, as Toshiba has recently launched new entry-level HD DVD players and more and more HD content is making its way into the market. The HD DVD group expects more than 300 HD DVD titles to be available by this summer worldwide.
Blu-ray is trailing this number, but can claim the best selling HD title: Casino Royale, which has been included in some PS3 shipments, has shipped more than 100,000 times in the Blu-ray version. : Philips consumer electronics operation reported slightly lower sales but slightly higher profit for the first quarter, ended March 31.
In consumer electronics, of which 22% of its sales come from North America, first-quarter sales were $2.
98 billion, down in comparable sales 6 percent from the previous year’s first-quarter sales of $3.3 billion. Profits were up slightly to $46 million from $44.
6 million.
Philips said that last year’s first-quarter CE sales were helped by a sell-in of TVs due to the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament held later in the year; however, in this year’s first quarter, flat TV shipments were 50 percent higher than the previous year but they were offset by lower sales of monitors and CRT TVs.
Sales of mobile phones, “the divestment of which was completed at the end of March,” declined by $64.
9 million compared with last year’s first quarter, Philips said.
Despite lower sales, Philips reported that the division’s profit increased slightly both in value and as a percentage of sales due to its entertainment solutions, home networks and peripherals and accessories operations.
Philips also reported that inventories decreased to 6.
4 percent of sales, from the 8.4 percent in last year’s first quarter, as “strict inventory control remained a priority for categories such as flat TV.
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