Too Old To Converge, Too Young To Die : DVD Technology in Mexico

The Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) was the most popular consumer electronics in the last decade times, but continued digital convergence in information technologies eroded its competitive position in the home video market. Yet, the DVD format still leads the electronics market in many developing nations. This situation is even more surprising after considering the arrival in 2008 of the newer Blu-ray disc (BD) format. In this paper, we analyze the survival of the DVD format in Mexico. Drawing on data collected from consumers, several factors that have deterred the adoption of BD are identified. According to the empirical evidence, the chief deterrents, apart from the higher price of BD players and discs, are the lack of technical information and, quite surprisingly, the confidence consumers said to have in the original DVD format. These results might suggest that consumers in emerging economies will keep using standard DVDs shortly despite the improved quality of BD technology