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U.S. market reference

Physical Media & Home Entertainment Statistics

Current, citable figures on DVD, Blu-ray, 4K UHD, digital transactions, streaming, and the home-entertainment market.

Last updated August 20, 2026. Full-year 2025 and first-half 2026 figures are shown.

The short version

Physical media is smaller, but still materially collectible.

U.S. spending on physical DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K UHD sell-through totaled $870 million in 2025. The latest mid-year figures show that premium formats strengthened in the second quarter of 2026, even as overall disc spending remained below the prior year.

Each figure links to the industry report that published it, so writers and collectors can check the original context before quoting it.

First-half 2026 update

The newest numbers show where collectors are leaning.

These are the latest published U.S. figures, covering January through June 2026.

Key statistics

The full-year numbers worth keeping close.

U.S. consumer spending, reported for full-year 2025.

Year-over-year view

Where the money moved in 2025.

The broad market grew with subscriptions, while physical formats and digital transactions moved in the other direction.

U.S. consumer spending by home-entertainment format
Format20242025Year-over-year
Physical DVD, Blu-ray & 4K UHD$960 million$870 million-9.3%
Digital purchase & rental transactions$4.0 billion$3.9 billionAbout -4%
Subscription streaming$48.0 billion$57.5 billion+19.8%
Total home entertainment$53.0 billion$62.2 billion+17.4%

Source: Digital Entertainment Group, Year-End 2025 Digital Media Entertainment Report, published February 11, 2026. The report defines physical product as consumer sell-through, rather than rentals.

What this means for collectors

Not every format has to be huge to matter.

Physical formats are no longer the mass-market default, but the 4K UHD result stands out: the premium, collectible format grew while overall physical spending fell. For collectors, that supports a simple idea: availability, edition quality, playback details, and the titles you care about matter more than buying whatever is newest.

That is the lane Retro and Classic Flixs is built for: out-of-print releases, hard-to-find titles, television, genre cinema, and the editions regular retailers leave behind.

Explore out-of-print DVDs →Browse the catalogue ↗

Sources & methodology

Built to be checked and cited.

This reference summarizes figures from the Digital Entertainment Group’s Year-End 2025 Digital Media Entertainment Report, published February 11, 2026, and its First Half 2026 Digital Media Entertainment Report, published August 13, 2026. Both reports are based on DEG member, tracking, and retail-platform input, and note that their figures are preliminary.

The spending figures apply to the United States. “Physical product” in the reports means sell-through product. Subscription-streaming figures are sourced by the reports from Omdia and cover movie- and television-focused services as described in their methodology notes.

Suggested citation

Retro and Classic Flixs. “Physical Media & Home Entertainment Statistics (2026).” Updated August 20, 2026. https://retroclassicflixs.com/physical-media-statistics