Market Trends

Santa Clara, Calif.  January 4, 2011--The availability of 3D content will remain the greatest determinant of the value of 3D TVs to consumers – and as a result its achievable premium in TV sets. 3D TVs were launched with much fanfare at IFA 2009, but a year ago at CES, the first real products reached the market. Since then, shipments have made steady, although slightly disappointing, progress. Global shipments in 2010 were expected to total 3.2 million worldwide, according to the DisplaySearch Quarterly TV Design and Features Report. 

Scottsdale, Ariz., December 20, 2010--ABI Research anticipates that mobile devices may turn out to be the best form factor to bring 3D technology into mainstream markets. By 2015, 3D devices—including smartphones, notebooks, mobile Internet devices, and portable game players—will comprise over 11% of the total mobile devices market.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz., December 20, 2010 - The DTT Set Top Box market continues to expand, as countries migrate from standard definition (SD) TV to high definition (HD) programs, and digital video recorders become more important.  New products like hybrid web-to-TV set top boxes also will contribute to the long-term growth of DTT STBs pushing revenues to nearly US$ 6 billion by 2014, says In-Stat.

CAMBRIDGE, MA - December 15, 2010 - According to NSR’s Government and Military Satellite Communications, 7th Edition report the industry will continue revenue gains until 2019 despite the imminent troop drawdown and complete withdrawal of allied troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. Policy changes in these hotspots are beginning to affect demand trends and market potential, which has grown robustly since 2002. There appears to be a turning point in market dynamics where sustainability and growth levels may have reached their peak. Moreover, internal military proprietary capacity has been deployed, and more is on the way to address bandwidth and service shortfalls.  

Wellingborough, UK, December 2, 2010--Over-the-Top (OTT) services have grown very popular over the last year and they will only get bigger considering the connectivity of home entertainment and portable CE devices. Based on a recently published study, Convergence in Home Entertainment and Portable CE Markets, IMS Research forecasts that over 2.1 billion connected devices will ship globally. This includes a forecast of 592 million fixed entertainment devices such as TV sets and game consoles, nearly 2 billion portable CE such as smartphones and tablets, and 268 million home network devices such as residential gateways.

SINGAPORE, December 1, 2010--Latest figures from ABI Research indicates that there are currently more than 500 3G network commitments, and over 300 WiMAX and LTE announcements worldwide. This equates to more than two billion of the world’s population being covered by high-speed data networks. The demand for speedy data networks continues to rise across the globe.  

Cambridge, Mass, November 30, 2010--According to NSR’s Global Satellite-Based Earth Observation, 2nd Edition study, the Earth Observation (EO) market growth, size and shape is more than ever affected by government contracts, in particular from military users. They are the largest consumers of high-resolution satellite imagery, as demonstrated by the recent EnhancedView contracts from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) that will generate a majority of the EO data market revenues over the next ten years.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. November 24, 2010 --(MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) set-top box shipments surpassed MPEG-2-only set-top box shipments for the first time in 2010, with about 53% MPEG-4 shipments worldwide. Despite the support for advanced encoding, however, pay-TV operators worldwide have been slow to support interactive features on set-top boxes, according to ABI Research.

LIBERTYVILLE, Ill., Nov. 17, 2010 – Paid-for television content – whether through cable, satellite or the Internet – is preferred over free-to-air services – even in markets where free programming is more readily available, according to global research from Motorola Mobility.

Singapore, November 17, 2010--According to the latest figures from ABI Research, global pay-TV service revenue totaled $55.5 billion during the third quarter of 2010, approximately a 9% increase from the same period in 2009.   Currently more than half of global telco TV service revenues come from Western Europe where telco TV penetration is already quite high, and net subscriber additions in the region are expected to slow due to that penetration. The result: telco TV’s market share in terms of subscriber numbers and service revenue is expected to decline in Western Europe in the coming years.