France Home Video Sales Continue Decline

Home entertainment revenues continued their slow but steady slide in France to land at $1.33 billion (€1.12 billion) in sales in 2012, down 8.7 percent from 2011. 

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A report released by the National Cinema Center (CNC), France’s film regulatory and promotional organization, highlighted the overall trend, noting that home video sales have fallen almost 20 percent since 2008. Blu-ray sales increased 9.3 percent to $297.9 million (€223.7 million) in 2012, but the growth was not enough to offset the decline (8.9 percent) in the DVD sales market.

Gauls took home 36.8 million copies of American movies, for a total of $578.9 million (€434.7 million) in sales. While overall sales were slightly down for American films, they increased their market share to total 62.8 percent of titles sold in the territory. French films held steady at 23.7 percent of the market share for $218.3 million (€163.9 million), though DVDs declined 6.9 percent and Blu-rays rose 17.8 percent within the category.

The top-selling DVDs in France were The Intouchables, Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1, Ice Age 4, The Avengers, The Adventures of TinTin, Foresti Party Bercy, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, The Dark Knight Rises, The King’s Speech, and Brave.

A second report issued by the Union of Digital Video Editors (SEVN) contrasted the exponential growth in VOD over the past five years in contrast with the decline in physical product during the same time period. Since 2008, VOD has grown almost sixfold from €33 million to $266.4 million (€200 million) in sales 2012. SEVN’s figures cited 60 million VOD purchases, and also estimated that 31 percent of Internet users have purchased VOD.

The top three purchases for VOD The Intouchables, Hollywoo, and The Avengers.