MRG announced its new IPTV Market Leaders Report for March 2007. The report tracks the top IPTV vendors in 24 sub-sectors (six each for four geographical regions) based on their deployments and installed base in over 570 IPTV Service Providers worldwide.

The report demonstrates the extreme volatility in the IPTV industry, with half the number one market leaders changing position since the previous report. "The greatest volatility was in Video-On-Demand, where all but one of the number ones changed," states Len Feldman, IPTV Analysis Director. "The least volatility was in Video Headends, where not a single number one changed since the last report."

The causes of some of this volatility include M&As such as that of Alcatel-Lucent; large increases in subscriptions (as seen at Verizon, France Telecom and Telefonica); and commercialization of in-house software, as seen with PCCW's Cascade software. "As large Service Providers pick up subscribers, we're seeing more surprises," states Gary Schultz, MRG President. "We believe some volatility will continue in most sectors as vendors compete in a healthy and open 'best of breed' market." Sectors tracked in each region include Middleware, Video Headends, Set-top Boxes, Content Protection, Access Ports, and Video-On-Demand (VOD) licenses. A total of about 80 competing companies or divisions are ranked. While about 300 of the 570 (mostly telco-based) Service Providers examined are US Independent Operators, the biggest share of subscribers come from the European market.

The report also anticipates upside growth potential of each of the top 25-30 vendors in the industry, based on the twenty largest and fastest-growing Service Providers in four global regions in which these vendors have deployed products. Growth prospects can be very important to even a small company with installations in high-growth SPs like China Netcom or Belgacom, even though the vendor itself is small at the moment.

The price of this 59-page report is $3,995 US for a printed copy, and $5,200 US for a PDF format Department License. It is free for subscribers to the IPTV Tracking Service.