Asia-Pacific Lifts Sagging Satellite Set Top Box Market

A remarkable shipment growth in the Asia-Pacific region, particularly India, has propelled the worldwide satellite set top box (STB) market in 2008, according to In-Stat. However, outside of Asia-Pacific and Latin America, regional markets remain sluggish or even negative.

Another important trend is the rise of High Definition (HD) Digital Video Recorders (DVRs). “In-Stat expects HD DVRs to overtake shipments of Standard Definition (SD) DVR boxes in 2009, with some providers no longer offering SD DVR boxes,” says Michelle Abraham, In-Stat analyst. “More providers will stop offering them in the future, with some going so far as to eliminate all SD boxes from their product lineup in a few years.”

Recent research by In-Stat found the following:
- The worldwide satellite set top box market grew by 6 percent in 2008, bolstered by triple-digit growth in the Asia-Pacific region.
- Thomson was the largest provider of satellite set top boxes in 2008. Other STB providers include Coship, EchoStar, Homecast, Humax, KAONMedia, Pace, Samsung, TechniSat, and Altech UEC.
- The semiconductor Bill of Materials (BOM) for Satellite STBs ranges dramatically from under $25 to well over $100 depending on advanced features, hard drive size and the number of supported video streams.
- Key semiconductor suppliers include ALi, Broadcom, NEC, NXP, STMicroelectronics and Zoran.
- Network connections are becoming increasingly important to support whole-home DVR services, over the top video (OTTV) to the TV, place-shifting, and remote DVR scheduling.

In-Stat