Las Vegas — DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group Jan. 6 used CES to celebrate its 20th anniversary and to share its 2016 year-end figures for home entertainment and technology spending, with total U.S. home entertainment revenue hitting $18 billion for the year, up nearly 2% from 2015.
“This is the year of numbers: DEG’s 20th year and the 50th for CES,” said DEG president Amy Jo Smith. She pointed to the growth of 4K hardware and software, with an estimated 16 million 4K Ultra HD sets in American homes and approximately 300,000 UHD Blu-ray standalone players sold in the first year of the format. That figure does not include sales of the Xbox One S.
To go along with the 4K Blu-ray format, studios released 110 titles on UHD Blu-ray Disc in 2016.
On the digital side, electronic sell-through rose 5% to just over $2 billion, with theatrical content sales growing 17% from 2015. VOD sales rose 6% to $2.1 billion, while subscription VOD was up 22% from 2015 to $6.2 billion.
DEG also reported that HDTV household penetration passed 112 million American households and that when set-tops and game consoles are considered, there are 88 million Blu-ray players in homes.
(Photo via Pictures of Money's Flickr. Image taken on Sept. 9, 2016 and used per Creative Commons 2.0 license. The photo was cropped to fit 9x16 aspect ratio.)
