Date: 04/03/2012

Gateway and thin client are estimated to reach 4.2M in 2012 from 0.34M in 2011

IHS has reported residential gateways are expected to become the new hub of the so-called digital living room when they take over from set-top boxes, with the vigorous gateway market projected to triple from 2012 to 2015.

IHS estimates worldwide gateway and thin client shipments are projected to reach 4.2 million units in 2012, up from just 345,000 last year and a mere 1,000 in 2010. Shipments then are expected to continue to climb quickly during the next two years-rising to 6.7 million units in 2013, to 10.4 million in 2014 and to 12.6 million by 2015, as shown in the figure below.

"While the set-top box has been the heart of the home media environment, acting as the home's primary media interface to the outside world and also connecting to the network and the TV, the residential gateway will be the next step up as it is able to link together an even wider range of devices," said Jordan Selburn, senior principal analyst for consumer platforms at IHS. "Through the residential gateway, a set-top box acting as a central server can be connected to any number of thin client boxes-and eventually to other media devices being used in the home, like smartphones or tablets-in order to deliver content. As such, gateways can become the nucleus of the digital living room, where consumers have seamless access to material from a wide range of sources."

Factors to Help the Gateway Market Take Off, according to IHS includes:

Although gateway devices will center on the North American region during the next few years and limit the size of the overall residential gateway space in the near term, the market will continue to expand as emerging regions begin to adopt the model. If the current set-top box market is any indication, countries like Brazil, Russia, India and China could propel the gateway space during the latter part of the decade and beyond, IHS predicts. In North America, many of the leading operators are moving to the server/client model, with the "Whole Home DVR" service offered by DirecTV, Comcast and others as the first step.