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Cable STBs buck usual first quarter lull: Infonetics

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Deepa
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BANGALORE, INDIA: The global set-top box market, including IP, cable, satellite and DTT STBs, and OTT media servers, totaled $4.4 billion in 1Q13, a decline of five per cent from 4Q12. Only cable STBs and OTT media servers gained on a sequential basis in 1Q13, finds market research firm Infonetics Research.

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"Cable set-top boxes bucked the seasonal trend in the first quarter of 2013, notching modest gains in both revenue and shipments," reports Jeff Heynen, principal analyst for broadband access and pay TV at Infonetics Research. "China and India remain strong and growing markets for low-end digital STBs, while Latin America continues to ramp. Meanwhile, North America also grew, thanks to increasing shipments of video gateways and clients."

About 56 per cent of STBs shipped in 1Q13 were basic standard definition boxes, pointing to a larger shipment mix to emerging markets like China and India, where the focus is on digitization rather than advanced services. Putting up its biggest quarter on record in 1Q13, Cisco extends its worldwide STB revenue share lead.

China Telecom just released a new tender for smart IP STBs for its growing IPTV services in Shanghai and Guangdong, and it is expected this will lead to an increase in IP STB shipments later this year. Infonetics forecasts telco IPTV subscribers to grow at a 17 per cent compound annual growth rate from 2012 to 2017, the highest of any subscriber category.

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