The IMS Research study IPTV: A Global Market Analysis reveals that 68% of total worldwide IP STB shipments in 2008 were deployed into both the Western European and the North American regions. Globally, IMS Research forecasts that IP STBs will grow at a CAGR of 16% through 2014.

Rebecca Kurlak, research analyst and author of the study, states, “A few of the prime markets for IP STBs will continue to be in the US, France, Italy, Spain, and China. The US alone will experience a 42% increase in subscriber uptake by the end of 2009, mainly driven by AT&T’s U-Verse service. US Tier 2 & Tier 3 telcos are expected to contribute almost 16% to total subscriber growth by the end of the year.”

Kurlak continues, “Not only will the market see uptake of IP STBs, but will see an increasing amount of hybrid IP+DTT STBs. France, Italy, and Spain are forecast to comprise 65% of Western Europe’s IP+DTT shipments by 2014. France Telecom, Telecom Italia, and Telefonica are using DTT to further complement their service offerings.”

Additionally she notes, “China continues to be the gold mine that every supplier wants to get their hands on. Both China Telecom and China Unicom are growing rapidly, with close to a 33% subscriber uptake by the end of 2009. In terms of IPTV households, we are expecting a CAGR growth of 25%.”

In addition to television household forecasts (split by picture quality and DVR functionality), the study provides detailed analysis of IP and IP+DTT STB shipments and revenues for three major global regions and three sub-regions, with further analysis on 64 individual countries. Two new features of the report include forecasts for IPTV Households by Telco Tier and segmentation of IP STB Shipments by MPEG-2 vs. MPEG-4 AVC compressions. IMS Research is the first to incorporate these segmentations in their reporting.