Punters across North America, Western Europe and Japan will buy in excess of 100m Blu-ray Discs by the end of 2009 - almost three times as many as were sold in 2008, a market watcher has predicted.

The Futuresource Consulting group also forecast that, by 2012, around 50 per cent of US and 35 per cent of Western European pre-packaged video retail sale volumes will be BDs.

But the market watcher’s prediction isn’t that startling given existing predictions for future Blu-ray sales, and is based largely on one simple fact: a greater prevalence of HD TVs in the market and the falling prices of Blu-ray players.

Mai Hoang, Senior Market Analyst at Futuresource, stated that the UK’s now the largest market for Blu-ray Discs in Western Europe. “With sales of more than 3.5m units in 2008, it [the UK] represented over 40 per cent of the West European total.”