Surging IPTV Subscriber Base Drives Set-top Box Sales in Q4 2008

Wednesday, March 11th, 2009
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Motorola, Cisco, Thomson, Echostar, and Pace Continue to Lead Market

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. — Dell’Oro Group, the trusted source for market information about the networking and telecommunications industries, reported today that the IPTV subscriber base grew by 3.2 million in the fourth quarter to reach 23 million subscribers at the end of last year, nearly double the number at the end of 2007. While Europe, Middle East, and Africa remained the largest market for unit shipments of IPTV set-top boxes, North America drove the market’s revenue growth in the fourth quarter as AT&T and Verizon continued to aggressively promote their television services.

“While the IPTV set-top box market continues to grow despite price declines, the cable and satellite set-top markets have begun to contract,” said Greg Collins, Vice President at Dell’Oro Group. “For 2009, we are expecting that unit shipments for all segments will increase with a higher percentage of units being high definition capable with a slowing in the trend toward integrated DVRs due to increased use of set-top boxes with multi-room DVR functionality,” he added.

During the quarter, Motorola and Cisco remained the top vendors in both the cable and IPTV markets, with Cisco gaining share in cable and Motorola gaining in IPTV. In the fourth quarter, Thomson maintained the top position in terms of satellite STB unit shipments, followed by EchoStar and Pace.

About the Report

The Dell’Oro Group Set-top Box Quarterly Report offers complete, in-depth coverage of the market with worldwide and regional tables covering manufacturers’ revenue, units shipped, and average selling prices for cable, satellite, IP set-top boxes and standalone digital video recorders (DVRs). The report tracks performance of key vendors, including Advanced Digital Broadcast (ADB), Amino, Cisco Systems, Echostar, Humax, Motorola, Pace plc, Samsung, Thomson, and UTStarcom (among others).