4K Blu-ray Sales Account for 13 Percent of UK's Blu-ray Market
4K Blu-ray Sales Account for 13 Percent of UK's Blu-ray Market
By Mike Wheatley - 4 January 2019

There are now more than 330 Ultra HD Blu-ray titles on sale in the UK, and these made up a combined 13 percent of total Blu-ray spending according to data from Futuresource Consulting, the British Association for Screen Entertainment has revealed

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The best selling Blu-ray titles in terms of premium format sales were the visually stunning Blade Runner 2049 and Ready Player One movies, which saw 4K sales account for 27 percent and 20.2 percent of all discs sold, BASE said. 

Other titles including Deadpool 2, Mission: Impossible - Fallout and The Greatest Showman also saw strong sales in the 4K format as well. 

Avengers Infinity War was the best selling 4K Blu-ray disc in the UK in terms of overall numbers, with sales of 43,000 units. Second was Star Wars The Last Jedi with 41,000 units sold. Blade Runner 2049 sold 39,000 UHD discs in total. 

Game of Thrones was the best selling TV series on Blu-ray disc, with over 250,000 sales in total. 

The popularity of 4K Blu-ray is rising even though the average cost of a single title has risen by 5 percent in the last year, BASE said.

BASE added the UK’s overall market for digital films, which includes regular DVDs and Blu-rays as well as 4K UHD Blu-ray discs, grew by 36 percent in 2018 compared to the previous year. The market raked in total profits of £400 million in 2018. 

One of the main reasons for the growth of 4K Blu-ray sales in particular is the growing accessibility of 4K TVs and 4K Blu-ray players, BASE said. 4K TVs used to very expensive, but Futuresource said last year that their prices are rapidly approaching parity with that of older HDTV sets. There’s also a lot more content to watch on them, with digital platforms such as Apple iTunes and Rakuten offering numerous 4K titles for rent at reasonable prices, providing some stiff competition to Blu-ray media.