A new report from SNL Kagan predicts that worldwide shipments of set-top boxes will remain flat in the near term as pay TV competition increases and the world’s largest cable TV markets approach saturation.
Though global shipments of set-top boxes were expected to reach 253.1 million 2015, that number was up only slightly from 248.6 million the year prior despite the swelling of the global multichannel market to nearly 959 million subscribers.
In 2015, High Definition-enabled set-top boxes were expected to account for just over three quarters of all global set-top box shipments, while satellite set-top boxes were expected to account for around 47 percent of global shipments. Shipments of DVR-enabled set-top boxes dipped in 2015 as cloud DVR services began to take hold.
The report indicated that product revenues from set-top box shipments are expected to decline to just $14.55 billion by 2019, down from $17.50 billion in 2015.