Pay TV operators worldwide continue to invest in advanced STBs

Following Dataxis latest research, Pay TV operators continue to invest in advanced STBs worldwide. As part of its permanent Advanced STB tracker, Dataxis analysed the details of more than 240 deals made by operators worldwide in the last three years.

In terms of figures, APAC and Europe are the leaders by far compared to North America. However, size and value of deals are however more important in North America, and the key operators in the region continue to drive the industry.

There are key trends findings:

• 4K is becoming more and more a standard feature with 40% of all new deployments, and even more taking into account the recent ones.

• Despite the rise of nPVR in many countries, most STBs include large hard-disk based PVR with multiple tuners.

• OTT integration has become a key issue for all players.

• Android TV is now a major force, especially in some regions, with 30% of all deployments in 2017. The number of deals won does not yet translate into a significant subscriber base using AndroidTV yet. Dataxis expects a significant ramp up in the years to come, despite the fact that many major Pay TV operators worldwide are not keen to adopt AndroidTV and have decided to go for specific solutions.

Finally, not more than 20 key STBs vendors are capturing the market, using essentially only one major chip supplier, and also less than 10 significant middleware solutions.