The local HD DVD Consortium has responded to dubious claims made by Sony Australia today which stated that Blu-ray players and media own a massive 95 per cent of the next generation DVD market, leaving HD DVD for dead. The research provided by Sony, which is one of the major players in the Blu-ray market, was commissioned by the consumer electronics company in conjunction with GfK and was based only on the month of October, said the HD DVD Consortium.

The Consortium also says it prefers to see figures supplied by independently-commissioned research. “HD DVD, while in early growth phase, is experiencing rapid growth based on a wide range of contributing factors. We have access to other GfK reports showing software percentages on a YTD basis with Blu-ray at 86% and HD DVD at 14%. The HD DVD Consortium looks forward to seeing further independent, consolidated reports that reflect the most up-to-date movements in the industry,” it said.

According to the Consortium, a better way to measure hardware sales would be to include all PCs that have next generation DVD built-in. “In PCs specifically, Toshiba and other manufacturers, including HP, Acer etc., provide the ultimate mobile HD entertainment environment and have shipped more units than PS3 in the last 6 months,” it said.

The recent move by JB Hi-Fi to stock HD DVD in addition to Blu-ray has seen HD DVD sales rise it the last three weeks shares of HD DVD have been 37 per cent, 31 per cent and 23 per cent respectively, higher than the October number quoted in the report., according to the Consortium.