Almost overlooked is the current 20 million of console games being sold by HET, an area where they are already seeing increased sales. Next year has the full release of the next generation XBox360 and PS3 games consoles. Fatter margins and good hardware demand will feed through for HET, not to mention increased game rentals as new console owners test out the new games.

Although like most retailers they are concerned by dvd piracy, the new copy protected DVD formats are coming out next year, HD DVD and Blue-Ray. The consortium behind the HD DVD format has already flagged it is eager for Chinese production to push the price of new machines down and the Blue-Ray consortium includes Sony and their new PS3 machine which will be a Blue-Ray DVD machine, 200million of which will be sold in the coming years. Of itself it may all be a little obscure in relation to HET but with all the Studios signed up to release DVD's on the new formats, piracy will become increasingly a thing of the past.

Much mentioned is the "home delivery" option much advertised by numerous suppliers this year. Already there has been a tightening in the offer by many of the new suppliers with restrictions to a certain number of rentals per month.This increase in the cost of the offer together with the normal postal delay for reciept, should curb the penetration of this "concept"

Further into the future is video on demand. This is more difficult to establish as a real threat to HET's DVD rental business, not least because the time frames are unknown and there will be a considerable technical investment by the user to actually use any potential service. Whtever develops it will have to compete with the almost total penetration of DVD players and low rental costs to customers.

No one may be safe in a fast changing technical world, but HET has proved to be nimble and although this has been a very poor year for them including the transition costs to full DVD with a substantial write down on VHS stock, the company is adapting well and at current prices, the share price shows a substantial discount to worth not least because of the 11% dividend on offer and the commitment by the company to a steadily increasing dividend.

Its well worth looking at the trade history for the last 6 months to understand just how few trades caused the fall. It may be the penalty of being an illiquid stock, but when overdone, the same illiquidity makes it an excellent stock for a rapid rise.

This has got to be the best tip ever ;)

someone dumped a few but another buyer picked up 9k today. It really is amazing just how illiquid this company is. I dont mind if it either bounces or they take the opportunity to take it fully private. Either way its in the 140-160p range.

Moving up the way it fell, on low volume.

Ticking up daily