Hybrid set-top boxes are rapidly being deployed by pay-TV operators worldwide to help them deliver advanced services and manage bandwidth scarcity in broadcast networks. In 2010, only 40% of set-top boxes worldwide featured hybrid capabilities, with many not yet enabled by software as operators were not ready to deploy IP video services. Hybrid box penetration will rise above 60% by 2016 as operators look at IP-based video on demand (VOD) and advertising solutions, as well as interactive content. Hybrid set-top boxes have the ability to decode video sent over the Internet or over two types of networks (such as satellite and terrestrial).

ABI Research's "Set-Top Box Market Data" presents an overview of global STB shipments across seven video platforms: digital cable, digital satellite (pay services and free-to-air), IPTV, and digital terrestrial TV (pay services and free-to-air). It also contains detailed data on TV household by platform, annual shipment forecasts for each technology and box type, and also segmented by encoding standard. It includes forecasts for hybrid set-top box shipments as well as cable gateway shipments.