MANHASSET, N.Y. — The DTV market is growing faster than predicted, due in part to an FCC mandate that DTV tuners be integrated into all TV sets sold in the United States larger than 13-inches by mid-2007, according to a new report from market research firm InStat/MDR (Scottsdale, Arizona).
The report, "Digital TV Sets: A New Day Has Dawned" noted the combined result of the mandate and other events will push the global market for digital television to 58 million DTV sets worldwide by 2007.
Michelle Abraham, senior analyst with InStat/MDR, explained that the FCC mandate in the United States announced last August "will result in more shipments of DTV sets with integrated tuners and end the life of the DTV monitor category."
That fact will change the InStat/MDR forecast for the United States from 8.5 million DTV sets in 2006, to a total of 18 million units that year.
By 2007, the shipments to the U.S. market will total 33.5 million units, more than half of the total worldwide.
Adding to the growth spurred by the U.S. mandate, Abraham noted that the launch of free terrestrial digital TV (Freeview) in the United Kingdom and in other European countries such as Finland, Germany, Spain, and Sweden, and the planned start of digital terrestrial broadcasting in Japan by the end of 2003, would help grow the market.
Along with market growth, increased demand for DTV tuner components will reduce prices, something that would happen faster for TV sets sold in U.S. markets where quantities are expected to be greater, Abraham said.
InStat/MDR expects the bill of materials for an Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) tuner to reach $40 by 2007 and a Digital Video Broadcast Terrestrial (DVB-T) tuner to reach $35 in the same time frame.
Greater integration of functions into fewer ICs will also lower costs and eventually bring overall DTV costs down so that they are within $100 of similarly priced analog TVs, the report predicted.
