MRG announces new leaders in the Global IPTV Market Leaders Report -- March 2009, tracking the top 100 IPTV vendors in 24 regional sub-segments based on the installed base of 6 video systems products in over 700 IPTV Operations. Continued growth of IPTV subscribers is occurring in Europe, Asia, Rest of World, and especially in North America.

While the closing of Tiscali/Italy and the reorganization of Nortel leave ripples of change throughout the industry, over 35 new IPTV operations began trials or deployment in the past six months in all 4 regions, leaving ripples of opportunity for existing companies. For the first time, Microsoft has moved upward to first position globally in VOD (Video-on-Demand). Yet, sixteen VOD vendors remain in the race with each of the top 10 having well over 1 million subscribers. In Content Protection, Verimatrix again scores #1 globally in a sector clearly leading the industry in its sure-footed march to providing converged 3-screen services.

In Middleware, over 22 companies continue to compete despite each of the six top vendors having well over 1 million subscribers. Likewise with Set-top-Boxes, the top 8 suppliers each have well over 1 million subscribers while Motorola and Amino are beginning to pull ahead. "Because of widely disbursed engineering, sales and manufacturing, the IPTV STB sector supports more competitive suppliers on a regional basis than earlier multichannel industries like cable or satellite," states Gary Schultz, CEO of MRG, Inc. "In many ways IPTV as an industry looks more like a triple-play version of the mobile phone industry than older models of the multichannel video industry."

Regional volatility also thrives in Asia, where UTStarcom has moved into first position for Access, VOD, Set-top-Boxes, Middleware and Content Protection due to its strong gains in China. "This kind of a regional category-take-over is unprecedented," states Jose Alvear, IPTV Analyst at MRG. "Larger vendors (and Service Providers) are starting to accelerate their regional strategies, due to unique opportunities in unserved markets."