US consumer spending on filmed entertainment on DVD, Blu-ray and digital formats totaled $18 billion. Blu-ray grew 20% in 2011 and 23% in the first quarter of 2012, according to figures from the Entertainment Merchants Association's latest report Discs and Digital - The Business of Home Entertainment Retailing.

Digital formats comprised of electronic sell-through, VOD and subscription streaming grew 51% in 2011 and 74% in the first quarter of 2012. Consumer spending on video game software, hardware and accessories in 2011 was between $16.3 billion to $16.6 billion.

Overall, consumer spending on filmed home entertainment and video games fell about 2% in each category in 2011. Physical discs still provide the majority of revenue with 81% of consumer spending on filmed entertainment coming from disc sales and rentals.

Sales of physical software accounted for 56% of total video game industry content revenues in 2011. When asked to choose between a physical and digital game, 75% of respondents said they would be the physical version.

Digital rentals and VOD and digital retail will grow 5% to 10% annually for several years. PC game sales are tipping to 60% digital and 40% physical in the U.S. Half of gamers purchased downloadable content in 2011 compared to 40% in 2001 and 34% in 2009.

On the retail front, Amazon increased its worldwide media sales by 15% in 2011. Netflix holds a market share of 30% in physical movie rentals and 55% in paid digital movie rentals. Rental kiosk chain Redbox's share of DVD and Blu-ray movie rental transactions was 37% in 2011.

In 2011, Walmart's Vudu increased its market share among online movie stores to 9% placing it third behind Apple iTunes (60%) and Microsoft's Zune Video Marketplace (16%).

Story filed 02.10.12