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Digital set-top box sales expected to double this year

Taiwan's manufacturers of digital television decoder boxes are expected to almost double the number of products they ship this year as more countries switch their TV signals over to digital, according to a report from the Ministry of Economic Affairs' Industrial Development Bureau (IDB) released earlier this week.

Last year, Taiwan shipped 2.31 million set-top boxes, an increase of 16 percent from 2002. That figure is expected to rise to 4.44 million, or 92 percent, this year, IDB official Ko Sheng-min (柯勝民) confirmed yesterday.

"The increase is a result of the US and countries in Europe switching to digital TV," Ko told the Taipei Times. "But the domestic market has been very slow to take off."

Hampered by squabbling between government bodies and the cable-TV industry over how much viewers have to pay for the boxes, only 53,000 families had subscribed to digital TV services as of the end of last month, according to Hong Kong-based researcher Media Partners Asia Ltd.

The bureau predicted yesterday that by 2006, local demand for digital set-top boxes will reach 1.54 million to meet the government's deadline for the switch to digital TV.

Taiwan is expected to ship 9.3 million set-top boxes in total in 2006, the report said.

A US-based researcher was equally optimistic for the set-top box industry.

"Enough countries will be turning on new digital terrestrial TV services throughout the world that the overall semiconductor value in digital set-top boxes will experience prolonged and continuous growth, rising from slightly more than US$112 million during 2003, to US$307 million during 2007," said a report from In-Stat/MDR published last November.

The cable TV industry is keen to promote digital TV, which allows users to send and receive e-mails, browse the Internet, shop, access information about items on screen and view weather, travel and stock market information on their TV sets.

"With total cable TV subscriber growth flattening out, long-term revenue gains for operators are contingent upon the introduction of, and expansion of, new digital video, data, and voice services," In-Stat/MDR reported on Monday.
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