While Blu-ray is the top dog in the US, DigiTimes has reported that HD DVD currently holds an 85% market share in Europe.
Toshiba, mainly through its US$499 HD-E1 HD DVD player, accounted for an 85% market share of next-generation blue-laser optical disc drives/players/recorders sold in Europe in January of this year, according to industry sources in Taiwan.
Sony and Samsung Electronics, proponents of the competing Blu-ray Disc (BD) format, together accounted for the remaining 15% of the European market, the sources said, citing statistics by GfK Marketing Services. Prior to the launch of the HD-E1, Toshiba's European market share for blue-laser products in 2006 was only 58%, the sources pointed out. Though HD DVD currently has a lead in Europe, the upcoming launch there of Sony's Blu-ray equipped PS3 game console is expected to heat up competition between the two formats.
As DigiTimes points out, this is likely to change when the PS3 launches in Europe later this month. If you'd like to read more, head on over to DigiTimes.
