...On Strategy Analytics' target, that is. We predicted global 2008 sales of 4.0 million units back in March, and that still seems a reasonable estimate. Some major industry players, however, seem to have been too optimistic and are now scaling back their plans. Sigma Designs is one of the leading suppliers of video processors for Blu-ray players. Sigma’s Edward McGregor has been quoted as saying: “Blu-ray has been slower than expected to catch on”, partly in defence of his company’s loss of market share to rivals Broadcom, NEC and others. It seems Sigma had been working on predictions of up to 6 million units and has now reduced these to 3-4 million. Companies often use this excuse, and take market projections that suit their needs at any given time. It’s an inevitable part of the forecasting game. That’s not to say we always get it right. As I’ve said previously forecasts are very rarely precisely accurate. But it is important to set a broadly correct expectation, and I would dispute that Blu-ray is not performing to expectations, as Sigma and many others now seem to be suggesting. As I’ve highlighted many times, just because Blu-ray defeated HD-DVD didn’t mean it was going to replace DVD overnight. It was always going to be a long haul for Blu-ray, and the dive in consumer confidence (the scale of which very few predicted a few months ago) is clearly not going to help in the near term. But while this holiday period is important for Blu-ray it’s by no means critical in the long term. This is a five-year transition and we are only in the very early stages. Client Reading: Blu-ray Disc Devices: Global Market Forecast