On Monday, Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. announced the launch of Blu-ray player’s fourth generation, which is expected to be made available for sale sometime this summer, and Blu-ray home theater’s second generation.

According to Dongsoo Jun, chief of Digital AV Business Division at Samsung Electronics, the overall Blu-ray market should record an average annual increase of at least 80% by the year 2012; this would mean 51 million units sold each year. Whether or not these expectations will be fulfilled, remains to be seen. Samsung has won the battle against Toshiba’s HD DVD high definition format. Over the past years, the HD DVD and Blu-ray were fiercely competing on the market, each side launching major marketing campaigns and being supported by movie studios, retailers and consumers. But at the beginning of the year, fortune has been on the side of Blu-ray, as several supporters of HD DVD have bailed out. After announcing that it would cease production of its HD DVD players and recorders in February, the Japanese electronics giant closed out the business at the end of March.

Although Blu-ray has no more rivals on the market, the players’ prices have started to rise. In February, the average price for the Blu-ray players jumped to $604. One month earlier, the average price for these devices was of $467. While it is certain that some anxious adopters of the Blu-ray high definition format would pay higher prices for their players, the mass adoption of the format could be delayed because of the aforementioned price increase.