Pay-TV set-top box market down 10% in Q1

Strong growth expected in hybrid STBs

CAMPBELL, CA — Market research firm Infonetics Research today released excerpts from its first quarter 2011 (1Q11) Cable, Satellite, IPTV, and 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. In 1Q11, evidence continued to mount that operators are in the early stages of implementing hybrid IP networks that offer the best of both OTT (over-the-top) and on-demand services combined with linear broadcast. As such, the hybrid segment of the market will experience the strongest growth over the next few years,” expects Teresa Mastrangelo, directing analyst for video at Infonetics Research.

STB MARKET HIGHLIGHTS

• The global set-top box market declined 10.2% 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; as such, the cable STB segment experienced the strongest sequential revenue declines, down 12.9% 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% 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% of revenue and 7% 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

REPORT SYNOPSIS

Infonetics’ quarterly set-top box report provides market size, market share, analysis, and forecasts through 2015 for IP STBs, cable STBs (digital and hybrid IP/QAM), satellite STBs (with hybrid IP/DVB-S breakouts), hybrid over-the-air (OTA) STBs, DVR STBs, HD STBs, OTT media servers, and subscribers (telco IPTV, cable video, and satellite video). Vendors tracked include Advanced Digital Broadcast (ADB), Amino, Cisco Systems, Coship, Dasan, DVN, Echostar, Humax, Huawei, Jiuzhou, Motorola, Netgem, Pace plc, Sagemcom, Samsung, Skyworth Digital, Sumitomo, Technicolor, and others.