UTStarcom is now totally dominating the Asian and Chinese IPTV markets, despite Mediaroom getting its first installation in China in January and the Chinese authorities sanctioning a variety of IPTV suppliers including ZTE and Alcatel as well as UTStarcom. This Chinese lead now means that analyst group MRG believes UTStarcom is the out and out leader in Asian IPTV systems.
We last reported UTStarcom back in July 2008 selling off its US handset distribution business, to an AIG Venture Capital subsidiary for $240 million, with the new UTStarcom CEO Peter Blackmore making it clear that the main company would focus on IPTV, softswitches and next generation fixed networks, mostly in Asia.
Well he’s managed that alright, and now has installed its RollingStream IPTV system at the majority of Chinese IPTV installations according to the latest quarterly numbers from US IPTV analysts at Multimedia Research Group (MRG). UTStarcom is also doing well around the rest of Asia including recent deals in Sri Lanka and in India at Bhaarti Airtel
According to MRG UTStarcom is now in first position in Asia in IPTV for Access (DSLAMs and IPSLAMs), VOD (servers), set tops, middleware and also locally for content protection, all due to its strong gains in China. ‘This kind of a regional category-take-over is unprecedented,’ states Jose Alvear, IPTV Analyst at MRG. ‘Larger regional vendors (and Service Providers) are starting to ‘pull out all the stops’ on their regional strategies, on the belief that the economic contraction is offering unique opportunities to move aggressively into unserved markets.’
Despite this, competition in IPTV middleware remains, with 22 companies still chasing this market. MRG says that they treat this as a marathon rather than a sprint. But the six top vendors each have well over 1 million subscribers. A similar situation exists with set tops, with the top 8 suppliers each having over 1 million subscribers but Motorola (with its Kreatel acquisition) and UK’s Amino (including its recent acquisition of Tilgin) beginning to pull ahead, MRG says.
MRG tracks the top 100 IPTV vendors in 24 regional sub-segments based on the installed base of 6 categories of video system products, in over 700 IPTV operations. Continuing growth of subscribers is reflected by increased deployments of IPTV products in Europe, Asia, Rest of World, and especially in North America.
A statement said, ‘While the closing of Tiscali IPTV in Italy and the reorganization of Nortel leave ripples of change throughout the industry, over 35 new IPTV operations began trials or deployment in the past six months in all 4 regions, leaving opportunity for existing companies.’
Microsoft, after five long years getting the majority of the headlines has moved upward to second position globally in Middleware and in Content Protection, but is now first in VOD. But there are 16 remaining VoD vendors still in the race, with the top 10 having over 1 million subscribers.
In Content Protection, Verimatrix again scored first globally’far ahead of Microsoft.