Date: 22/12/2010

Semiconductor market for all DTT STBs to exceed US$ 500 million in 2014, says In-Stat

In-Stat in its recent report has estimated semiconductor Total Available Market (TAM) for all Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) STBs to exceed US$ 500 million in 2014, with approximately 80% of the TAM coming from HD boxes. On the overall market of DTT Set Top Box, In-stat said the total DTT STB revenues to reach nearly US$ 6 billion by 2014.

In-stat says 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 Set Top Box, adds In-stat.

"The bulk of the market value resides in Western Europe and Asia/Pacific with the key growth regions being Latin America and Asia/Pacific," says Gerry Kaufhold, Principal Analyst. "Sezmi TV will spur moderate growth for HD-DVR STBs in the US. The Middle East and Africa hold potential but not until the economic situation improves and local governments decide how they will handle subsidizing DTT converter boxes."

Some of the other research findings disclosed include:
Europe is embracing High Definition and optional Pay-TV services.
DVB-T2 will provide a second growth phase for Europe.
Hybrid Broadcast Broadband services and the UK's YouView approach will increase demand for HD STBs equipped with disk drives and broadband connections.
Intel is entering the DTT STB market with Metrological's YuiXX Hybrid STB, Amino's Freedom box, Google TV, and others.
Africa and Latin America will "leapfrog" directly to MPEG-4 HD and spur long-term growth.
Licensing fees are a significant cost of manufacturing HD DTT boxes. By 2014, licensing will account for a higher percentage of the total Bill of Materials (BOM) than Decoders, Tuners or Memory devices.