LG discontinues all of its UHD Blu-ray and Blu-ray players
Another hit for physical media – LG discontinues Blu-ray player production
LG has confirmed that they have discontinued the production of all of its Blu-ray players. This includes all Blu-ray and UHD Blu-ray players. Even their newer UBK80 and UBK90 UHD players have been discontinued.
LG’s existing Blu-ray player lineup will only remain available while stocks last. FlatpanelsHD contacted LG Korea, who confirmed the discontinuation of these products. However, LG did not state that it is leaving the market entirely. If demand picks up, LG could return to the market.
(Optical Disk Drives are becoming an increasingly rare sight)
Physical media has declined in popularity. Steaming services have become the most popular way consumers watch media on demand, and DVDs remain more popular than Blu-ray discs. This has left Blu-ray players with low sales volumes, which is a problem for manufacturers. Furthermore, modern game consoles are making disc drives an optional accessory, further lowering sales for Blu-ray drives.
While Blu-ray media has obvious quality benefits over streamed media, sales of this type of media aren’t strong. Furthermore, Blu-ray users don’t often replace their players, creating a small market for dedicated Blu-ray players. Perhaps the ever-rising cost of streaming services will cause a growth in physical media sales. That said, we don’t expect Blu-ray ever to be as popular as DVD was at its peak.
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