Advance warning of a press release we are distributing later today: Blu-ray Disc’s victory in the recent format war with HD-DVD will propel the technology into 29.4 million homes worldwide by the end of 2008, according to the latest research published by Strategy Analytics’ Connected Home Devices service. According to the report, "Blu-ray Devices: Forecasting Sales and Ownership", Sony’s PS3 games console will continue to drive the Blu-ray market until 2009, after which standalone Blu-ray players will become the dominant segment. By 2012 more than 132 million homes worldwide will own at least one Blu-ray device. “HD-DVD’s withdrawal leaves the way open for Blu-ray to become a major revenue earner for technology vendors and content owners alike,” says David Mercer, Principal Analyst. “The 265 million homes that will own an HDTV by 2012 and Hollywood’s need for a new growth engine represent huge incentives for the industry to coordinate marketing activities and demonstrate unified support for the successor to DVD.” The report predicts that global sales of Blu-ray devices will reach 18.8 million units in 2008, including 4 million standalone players, 13 million consoles and nearly 2 million PCs. By 2012 annual sales of all BD devices will reach 57.4 million units; the largest market will be Europe, with 26.4 million, followed by the US (22.6 million) and Japan (8.4 million). Blu-ray Disc Devices: Household Penetration Forecast % of all households with at least one BD device 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 Japan 0% 2% 6% 15% 26% 38% 48% 55% US 0% 1% 4% 10% 20% 29% 38% 44% Europe 0% 0% 2% 7% 13% 20% 26% 32% Source: Strategy Analytics’ Connected Home Devices service Client Reading: Blu-ray Disc Devices: Global Market Forecast