UK retailer Woolworths moves Blu-ray exclusively

With Blu-ray rapidly gaining momentum in the next-gen DVD war, UK retailer Woolworths has announced it will stop stocking Toshiba's HD DVD format in stores.

HD DVD players will still be available from its online store after March, which is when the company will sell Blu-ray players exclusively in its 820 locations throughout the UK.

According to sales data from Woolworths, Blu-ray outsold HD DVD by a ten-to-one margin during the holiday season. This is a problem for Toshiba's format, as Woolworths is one of the biggest retailers for next-gen DVDs in the region.

Furthermore, sales appear to be accelerating. While DVD sales seem to have stagnated, Woolworths is seeing increases of 40 percent or more in Blu-ray and HD DVD sales.

Much of this success has a lot to do with the fact that Sony's PlayStation 3 can play Blu-ray discs. Because of that, there are some 750,000 homes in the UK that can now play Blu-ray, whereas there are far fewer HD DVD-enabled homes, Woolworths' DVD buyer Steven McGunigel told the Retail Bulletin.