Skip to main content

Pay-TV Market Transition Impacts Set-Top Box Needs

The volatile pay-TV industry is going through a period of transition, as low-cost video entertainment services gain new subscribers -- and thereby further fragment the global markets. As a result, traditional pay-TV service providers are evolving their offerings, which directly impacts their systems and CPE device suppliers.

Infonetics Research released excerpts from its first quarter 2011 (1Q11) Cable, Satellite, IPTV, and Over-the-Top (OTT) Set-Top Boxes and subscribers market share and forecast report.

"Despite a quarter-over-quarter decline in the global set-top box market, all major segments are up from this time a year ago in both revenue and shipments, indicating that the pay-TV market is rebounding after two years of significant declines," said Teresa Mastrangelo, directing analyst for video at Infonetics Research.

In 1Q11, evidence continued to mount that pay-TV service providers are in the early stages of implementing hybrid IP networks that offer both OTT and traditional on-demand services -- combined with linear broadcast TV channels.

As such, the hybrid segment of the market will experience the strongest growth over the next few years.

Infonetics' latest market study highlights include:

- The global set-top box market declined 10.2 percent in 1Q11 to $3.1 billion, primarily attributed to normal seasonal trends.

- The cable STB segment continues to contract as subscriber growth remains limited across the lucrative North America and EMEA markets and demand slows for advanced services.

- The cable STB segment experienced the strongest sequential revenue declines, down 12.9 percent in 1Q11.

- Lower than expected demand for IPTV services in EMEA during 1Q11 resulted in strong declines in shipments into this region, causing an 11.7 percent drop in global IP STB revenue.

- Demand for OTT media services remained strong in 1Q11, but challenges lie ahead for this category.

- During 1Q11, hybrid STBs represented 8 percent of revenue and 7 percent of shipments; Netgem leads in hybrid IP/OTA STBs, Motorola leads in hybrid IP/QAM STBs, and ADB leads in hybrid IP/DVB-S STBs.

- Motorola and Pace continue to battle it out for overall STB market leadership, with Motorola leading in revenue and Pace leading in unit shipments.

- Cisco is the market share leader in both revenue and shipments in the IP STB market.

- Echostar leads in worldwide satellite STB revenue, in a tight race with Technicolor.

Popular posts from this blog

Digital Grids Reshape the Future of Electricity

What was once a simple, unidirectional flow of electricity from centralized power plants to passive consumers is evolving into a complex, intelligent network where millions of distributed resources actively participate in grid operations. This transformation, powered by smart grid technologies, represents one of the most significant infrastructure shifts of our time. It promises to reshape how we generate, distribute, and consume energy. At its core, the smart grid represents far more than mere digitization of existing infrastructure.  This bi-directional capability is fundamental to understanding why smart grids are becoming the backbone of modern energy systems, facilitating everything from real-time demand response to the integration of renewable energy sources. Smart Grid Market Development By 2030, smart grid technologies are projected to cover nearly half of the global electrical grid, up dramatically from just 24 percent in 2025. This expansion is underpinned by explosive gr...