Dallas – A recently released tracking study
on digital-to-analog converter boxes from Digital
Tech Consulting (DTC) found that nearly 7 million units shipped during the
second quarter of 2009.
The market
research firm said the results were actually “healthier than expected.”
An update to the
study shows that nearly 45 million D/A converter boxes have shipped into retail
outlets from the beginning of the coupon program through the second quarter of
2009.
“Given the high
number of coupon applications received in June and the first part of July, it
is likely that several million more will ship through year end,” stated Myra
Moore, DTC principal.
With the largest
portion of the transition now complete in the largest market in world, DTC said
that more activity waits D/A converter box makers. With the exception of Germany, The
Netherlands and a handful of smaller Western European countries, the rest of
the world has yet to pull the analog TV plug, DTC observes.
Some 79 percent of
the countries in the world have yet to start commercial digital terrestrial TV
(DTT) transmissions, although 42 percent have pledged to do so in the near
future.
Still, no one
market offers the same potential that U.S. transition did and not all
countries have made a digital TV system conversion a priority at this time.
However, DTC pointed
out, companies selling DTT receivers “don’t have to worry about the well going
dry just yet. From 2010 to 2013, some populous and/or prosperous countries are
scheduled to shut off their analog systems — among them Canada, the U.K.,
France, Ireland, Italy,
Spain and South Korea.”
A significant
number of countries are now testing, building, or planning a system, DTC said.
“Equipment
suppliers will just have to work a little harder to tailor solutions to
individual countries that will likely make their jobs harder by building
systems that will vary slightly from country to country,” Moore observed. “Plus, the transition has
already been completed for the U.S.,
which has 100 million TV households. Not many of those kinds of TV household
penetrations left in the world — oh, except for China.”
For information on acquiring the
full report, contact Myra Moore at [email protected].
