MRG's Global IPTV Forecast Advises Watchful Optimism for 2009

SAN JOSE, CA — The new IPTV Global Forecast Report — May 2009 from MRG, Inc. shows that 2008 actual IPTV subscribers ended up at about 1 million over its last forecast in late 2008, or 21.3 million, resulting in projected subscriber growth of 26.9 million in 2009 to over 81 million in 2013. Combined (last-mile) CapEx revenue plus service revenue will grow from US$9.7 billion in 2009 to US$25.6 billion in 2013.

The new IPTV forecast for 2009-2013 is both conservative and optimistic, based on very detailed semi-annual analysis that MRG does on individual Service Providers and on a country-by-country basis.

“The relatively strong market in 2008 caused CapEx transactions to flourish through the end of 2008,” says Jose Alvear, MRG Analyst. “That anticipatory wave of orders kept vendors’ pipelines full all the way through 2008, but in Q1/2009, many IPTV vendors reported single-digit reduction in revenues, which is reflected in our flattened 2009 forecast.”

Yet, one positive indicator was strong IPTV subscriber growth of 583,000 combined for Verizon and AT&T in Q1/2009. Another is the large number of new IPTV Operators in Eastern Europe and the Rest-of-World (ROW) region, moving from 64 companies to 84. Countries like Colombia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Montenegro and the Russian federation have seen new growth in their operations

As the IPTV market matures, many innovations are emerging, including upgrades like DVRs and MPEG-4/H.264 compression, High-definition programming, and first class System Integration. “Professional services growth is brought on by stronger regional partnerships of vendors and resellers that continue to move into smaller markets,” states Alvear. “Growth in System Integration and Professional Services will also be spurred by the growth of turnkey system sales where all the components and services are heavily pre-integrated.”

The report includes the market growth of six (last-mile) CapEx products plus System Integration in 4 worldwide regions, with details about these 24 sectors and the related subscriber and system revenues for 2009 to 2013. The price of this 97-page (indexed) report is $3,995 USD for a printed copy, and $5,200 USD for a PDF format Departmental License. It is free for subscribers to the IPTV Tracking Service.