Monday June 27, 2011 – Jing Sui
Planning for analog TV shut-offs is well underway in many countries that are just beginning to turn on digital terrestrial TV transmissions. But it will be years before there is worldwide (or near worldwide) switch to digital terrestrial broadcasts, and two countries that will have a major impact on STB and TVs sales – India and China – have barely begun the transition from analog to digital terrestrial broadcasts. That’s why there’s still a lot of life left in the digital STB market.
DTT receivers –both STBs and TVs -- will log healthy growth in emerging markets throughout the decade. Now that parts of Western Europe and the United States have completed successful analog shut-offs, millions of households in Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia/Pacific countries will soon add STBs or IDTVs to their homes. Thanks to these analog shut-offs, DTC expects to see about 41.7 million digital terrestrial STBs ship in 2016.
Although there is a high penetration of pay TV in the most developed nations, there is a significant dependence on free over-the-air (OTA) broadcast transmissions in other parts of the world. For those pondering the end of OTA broadcast TV due to “cord cutting” and proliferation of pay TV services, they only need look to the continued march to digital OTA broadcasts over the decade to understand the worldwide digital TV market.
