With telecoms firms and IPTV providers stepping up their efforts to deploy video services, IP/DSL set top boxes are set to move from being niche products to become mass-produced devices.
A new report from
InStat/MDR claims that while cost is a barrier to takeup of of IP/DSL units, ASPs are declining every year. Increased shipments allow more manufacturing efficiencies and lower component costs.
In an uncertain market, various new box providers, mainly from Asia, have brought out IP/DSL set top boxes in the last year while others have gone to the wall or withdrawn products.
However, the market as a whole is expanding and Instat/MDR estimates that global orders will reach 500,000 in 2003 and exceed one million next year. By 2007, it is estimated that IP/DSL set top box shipments will top eight million worldwide. The Asian and European markets are expected to be bigger than North America due to the larger number of deployments in those regions.
“The IP/DSL set top box market has been a small one since its inception in the late 1990s when box vendors received orders for only several thousand boxes at a time,” said Michelle Abraham, a senior analyst with In-Stat/MDR. “In 2002, this began to change and today, a few vendors have received orders at the hundred thousand level.”
