Demand for pay TV video encoders on the rise

Tuesday, October 21st, 2014
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Growth of Pay TV Subscribers and Channels Propels the Global Pay TV Video Encoders Market

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — The demand for pay TV video encoders is on the rise, with cable, Internet protocol TV (IPTV) and satellite companies requiring these products to get consumers the shows they want from content producers to their home set-top boxes. In fact, with the global expansion of pay TV subscribers and increasing number of channels, cable, IPTV and satellite companies have been left with little option but to step up their video encoder purchases.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, Global Pay TV Video Encoders Market, finds that the market earned revenues of $435.1 million in 2013 and estimates this to double to $895.2 million by 2020. The study covers cable, IPTV and satellite video encoders.

“Advanced markets are investing in sophisticated video encoder technologies, while other markets are just beginning their cable digitalization journeys,” said Frost & Sullivan Digital Media Research Analyst Robert Cavin. “Overall, pay TV subscriber bases are expanding in all markets across the globe, indicating ample opportunities for pay TV video encoder vendors in the coming years.”

Market participants can achieve strong growth rates either through encouraging greenfield deployments in emerging regions such as China, India and Latin America or by upgrading existing infrastructure in long-standing regions like North America and Europe. Of these two options, the latter will be more rewarding, asNorth America and Europe have high average revenue per user (ARPU) despite the higher number of overall pay TV subscribers inChina, India and Latin America. Robust ARPU and subscription fees mean higher pay TV industry revenues that will allow service providers to deploy state-of-the-art equipment to keep subscribers satisfied.

However, escalating consumer awareness and usage of over-the-top video services through various media, challenges the linear pay TV business model, thereby, limiting the sales volumes of encoders. In addition, the shift towards software-based architectures and multi-screen viewing options is also adversely affecting market development.

“As such, it is a competitive necessity for pay TV video encoder vendors to offer unified multi-screen services along with linear pay TV as this will give consumers the viewing freedom they desire without having to leave the pay TV ecosystem,” stated Cavin. “It is also important for pay TV video encoder vendors to roll out reliable products with efficient compression technologies.”

Global Pay TV Video Encoders Market is part of the Digital Media Growth Partnership Service program.