Universal Drives to Take Two-Thirds of $2 Billion High-Definition DVD Drive Market in 2012

ABI Research can tell the future:

The adoption of high definition optical drives by personal computer manufacturers and consumers is only just beginning. Nonetheless both Sony (with its Blu-ray format) and Toshiba (HD DVD format) have announced their intentions to include high definition DVD drives in all their machines.

With consumers confused about which format to buy and a relative paucity of drives available to computer manufacturers, how rapidly will HD optical drives enter the PC market?

“ABI Research expects high-definition drives to bring in revenues of about $2 billion by 2012,” says principal analyst Steve Wilson. “Of that, about two-thirds will be accounted for by universal drives, which can play either format. Few universal drives are sold today, partly because of their higher price. But those prices will fall to about the same as Blu-ray players by 2009, and we forecast universal player sales to exceed Blu-ray the following year.”

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