Set-Top Box Numbers Growing, But Industry Revenue Under Pressure, IHS Says

Shipments of set-top boxes will grow this year, but revenue will be down due to price wars at the high end and growing numbers of economy units in emerging markets, IHS said in a report. Unit shipments in the first quarter of 2015 were up 3 percent from the same quarter a year earlier, IHS said. The global set-top box market was $4.2 billion in the quarter, down 3 percent sequentially. Cable set-top box sales were down 2 percent in the first quarter, while headed gateways and hybrid IP/QAM devices grew, IHS said, saying it expects to see strong unit growth for High-Definition Multimedia Interface dongles such as Amazon's Fire TV Stick HDTV, Google's Chromecast and Roku HDMI sticks. The number of HDMI dongles sold worldwide could top 27 million by 2019, IHS said.