From this thread we have a idea of general laserdisc sales and the most successful years.
What years was Laserdisc in its prime?
1978-1990 saw increasing sales year on year
1991-1997 were the best years
1997-2001 sales decreased

Japanese demand generally mirrored USA but lasted a few years longer.

From this thread I found some info about hardware/software decline in later years.
The decline of laserdisc hardware and software
hardware fell year on year from 1997 onwards
U.S. Laserdisc Hardware Demand
1997 35,000
1998 25,000
1999 20,000
2000 5,000
2001 -

U.S. Laserdisc Title Demand
1997 8 million
1998 5.6 million
1999 4.0 million
2000 3.5 million
2001 1.0 million

According to wiki there were a total of 16.8 million LaserDisc players sold worldwide, of which 9.5 million were sold by Pioneer. So I wonder what the 16.8 million would look like on a year by year basis of sales. That's the equivalent of roughly 730,000 machines per year for 23 years which is a huge amount!

I was just curious when all these sales took place so I came up with these initial projections....

1978 10,000
1979 20,000
1980 40,000
1981 60,000
1982 80,000
1983 100,000
1984 120,000
1985 130,000
1986 150,000
1987 200,000
1988 300,000
1989 500,000
1990 1,000,000
1991 2,000,000
1992 3,000,000
1993 4,000,000
1994 3,000,000
1995 2,000,000
1996 500,000
1997 75,000
1998 50,000
1999 40,000
2000 10,000
2001 5000
2002 4000
2003 3000
2004 2000
2005 1500
2006 1200
2007 1000
2008 800
2009 600

That produces a total of roughly 17 million but I'm concerned about how quickly the figures dropped in 1996-97.

Still its an interesting list because it shows most players were probably manufactured in 1990-1995 so are approaching 25+ years old!!


Any thoughts?

Interesting stuff, I hate to say it but our major years of buying LDs were from 1989-1992 then I started again on ebay.
Very short time with not too many discs, as we all know they were very expensive and to make a nice library of titles you had to spend a ton.

What always boggles my mind is the amount of different models offered over the years.

It's fascinating to see just how many players had to be sold in the peak years to reach that total of 16.8 million players.
They must have been pumping them out between 1990-1995 as the demand sky rocketed with all the manufacturers jumping on the same bandwagon.

It's also not hard to see why Pioneer hugely underestimated what would happen in the later years. High definition equipment was available during the peak period so they probably thought that if the rise continued they would be unstopppable as they migrated their existing customer base and new customers to the world of HD. They were of course 20 years too soon and this technology got completely missed by the public at the time.

Can you imagine working for Pioneer in 1993 to witness the near total collapse of laserdisc by 1997.