Date: 7th Apr 2011

Infonetics: N. American video infrastructure declined by 7% in 4Q10

Market research firm Infonetics Research has released its fourth quarter 2010 (4Q10) Cable, Satellite, and IPTV Video Infrastructure and Subscribers market share and forecast report.

Cable, Satellite, and IPTV Video market highlights:
Worldwide video infrastructure revenue sequentially dipped 3% to $836 million in 4Q10
Worldwide video encoder revenue increased 10% and topped the $100 million mark in 4Q10, representing the third consecutive quarter of growth for MPEG-2 encoders and renewed efforts among cable operators to expand their HD channel lineups
Concurrent leads the worldwide video-on-demand and streaming content server market for revenue in 4Q10, followed by ZTE, SeaChange, and Cisco, as Huawei drops from the top 5
Operators aren't generating as much revenue from pay video-on-demand services as they would like (much of the unicast video traffic is free or is for subscription services such as HBO, Showtime, and Starz), explaining why cable operators want to be allowed to offer first-run movies earlier, as that would allow them to charge more per movie

"The overall video infrastructure market was impacted by another decline in video-on-demand and streaming content server sales in the quarter, as well as a slowdown in digital cable and satellite middleware sales. North American video infrastructure showed the biggest decline in the quarter, dropping 7%, after two straight quarters of revenue increases. North American MSOs and telco IPTV operators slowed their purchases of VOD servers as they continue to struggle with slow uptake of pay VOD programming," notes Jeff Heynen, directing analyst for broadband access at Infonetics Research.