In yet another light-shedding on consumer video usage during the pandemic, the Digital Entertainment Group said that overall spending across home entertainment formats was up 34% in the second quarter, year over year to $8 billion.
Due to the rise of streaming, the home entertainment business was already growing--it was up nearly 18% to $7.1 billion in Q1. But pandemic usage habits nearly doubled revenue growth.
Total home entertainment revenue for the first six months of 2020 grew by 26% to $15.1 billion.
Notably, DEG collects its sales data directly from the studios, not consumer surveys, rendering its mid-year home entertainment revenue report a somewhat different perspective on pandemic behavior.
Revenue was up across all formats, but subscription streaming (i.e. Netflix and other SVOD services) was up the most, up 42.4% in the second quarter, to $5.54 billion.
Electronic sell-through and video-on-demand for movies and TV shows on platforms like Vudu and Amazon was up 54% in the second quarter to $1.5 billion.
DEG said that top movie titles during the second quarter include Bad Boys for Life, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Sonic the Hedgehog, Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey, Jumanji: The Next Level, Bloodshot, 1917, Dolittle and The Call of the Wild.
Total revenue for all digital home entertainment products came in at nearly $7.1 billion in Q2, according to DEG, up 44.7%. Sales of physical media—Blu-ray and DVD—continued to decline, dropping 17.2% in the first half of 2020 to $1.27 billon.
Notably, DEG doesn’t include the fast-evolving premium VOD business in its mid-year state of the home entertainment industry report.
