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Huawei still leads IPTV equipment and software market

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HONG KONG – Strengthened largely by internet protocol television (IPTV) subscriber growth among its core customer base at China Telecom Corporation, China Unicom (Hong Kong) and China Mobile, Huawei Technologies has expanded its global lead in the IPTV equipment and software markets, analysis by S&P Global Market Intelligence has found.

 

Currently supporting over 92 million IPTV subscribers worldwide, Huawei leads in four of five technology categories tracked: broadband access equipment, video-on-demand servers, set-top boxes (STBs) and IPTV middleware.

 

Jeff Heynen, Research Director for Kagan at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said: “The three Chinese telcos collectively added over 39.3 million new IPTV subscribers in 2017. All three operators are aggressively marketing their IPTV services as part of a bundle with their fiber broadband and fixed-line voice services. These subscriber gains have substantially benefited Huawei, which often receives the largest portion of networking equipment contracts from these Chinese telcos.”

 

Key takeaways of the analysis report include:

 

  • According to industry reports and estimates from Kagan, the top 25 global IPTV operators added 43.5 million new subscribers in 2017, with the bulk of those coming from China.

 

  • The top 25 operators saw tepid subscriber growth, similar to that across the pay TV industry. We estimate that these operators collectively accounted for 87% of global IPTV subscribers in 2017, up from 85% in 2016.

 

  • The market share rankings for IPTV technology suppliers are expected to not change significantly year over year as the IPTV market is mature.

 

  • The only fundamental change that can occur among the vendor leaderboard would come in the form of consolidation.