ABI Sees Bright Outlook for IP STB Market

SINGAPORE: The market for IP set-top boxes—enabling HD, on-demand and interactive services—will be worth more than $3 billion by 2014, according to ABI Research, while the demand for basic boxes is declining.

“Shipments of basic boxes across all television platforms have declined and will continue to fall throughout the six-year forecast period," said Serene Fong, industry analyst at ABI Research. "In contrast, shipments of boxes with HD capabilities and MPEG-4 compression technologies—including HD hybrids—will head north.”

ABI sees the growth in the IP STB market as tied to the increased ownership of HDTVs. 

Leading the cable STB vendor list are Motorola and Cisco Systems, with a combined market share close to 50 percent in 2008. Thomson and Panasonic ranked highest in the DBS and DTT segments, respectively, in the same period. “Vendors’ strategies for retaining their market shares are targeted towards emerging technologies such as HDTV, IPTV and digital TV, as these are expected to be the main driving forces for STB sales in the coming years,” Fong concluded.