Germany's DVD sell-through market has leaped 79% in the first quarter, over 2001, helping to boost overall turnover in the national video industry by 25.5% to $332.2m in the first three months of 2002.

Statistics compiled by GfK for the trade association Bundesverband Video (BVV) show that the video/DVD sell-through sector saw growth of 35.9% from last year's $171.9m to $223.5m, while DVD alone posted a 78.9% increase year-on-year from $78.7m to $141m. Sales of VHS cassettes, meanwhile, remained stable at $92.8m (2001: 93.2m).

Last year, nearly 37.4% of the units sold were DVDs, but this increased to 47.7% in the first three months of 2002; in March, the DVD market share of 54.4% even exceeded that of video cassettes (45.6%) for the first time.

In the rental sector, the DVD format has also been making great strides, trebling its share of transactions from 6.5% to 19.5%, although the overall number of transactions remained stable at 37.1m.

At the same time, German films and co-productions have been given a boost in this first quarter particularly with the release of last year's blockbuster Manitou's Shoe (Der Schuh Des Manitu). More than every third video (36.1%) and every sixth DVD (17.5%) sold were a German production, according to GfK.