Italy's homevideo market up in 2007
Sales up 2.1% from 2006
"Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," and "Shrek 3" were last year's top three Italo homevid sellers.
The albeit modest Italian homevid uptick follows two consecutive years of homevid indicators pointing downward and mirrors a positive trend at the Italo theatrical box office, which saw grosses up 13% in 2007 to $900 million with "Shrek 3" the top theatrical title.
As for the format war, Blu-ray is winning with 84.6% of the high-def market against 15.4% for HD DVD in Italy. But these high-def technologies only account for about 1% of the local market, according to the report by GfK Marketing Services Italia. The report does not include revenues from rentals and newsstand sales.
