Demand for Home Media Gateways grows

Home Media Gateway unit shipments continue to be relatively modest, but MRG is projecting demand to increase significantly over the next few years.

A new type of set-top box is appearing in homes of a select number of pay-TV subscribers. This box, which is often called a home media gateway, offers features that permit pay-TV service providers to better meet the needs of today’s connected consumer.

Some key features supported by the home media gateway products are multi-room personal video recording, streaming IP video, and support for multi-screen video (commonly called TV Everywhere).

Home media gateway products integrate traditional set-top box functions, like support for conditional access and TV tuning, with enhanced connectivity capabilities. These enhanced capabilities include support for home networking and OTT video.

Key findings in this research include: in 2013, global unit shipments of home media gateway products are on track to reach nearly 10 million, a solid increase from the 7.7 million units that shipped in 2012.

Revenues of home media gateway products are projected to reach nearly $3 billion in 2013, up from $2.3 billion in 2012.

Home media gateway products have high average sales prices (ASPs), which make them attractive to set-top box manufacturers.

Currently, ASPs for home media gateway products are around $300 per box, which generally limit the penetration of home media gateways to the high-income household regions of the world.

Through 2015, we are projecting that virtually all home media gateway product deployments will be confined to North America and Europe.

Headed gateways currently account for the lion’s share of home media gateway unit shipments. In 2013, only 2% of global unit shipments are projected to be “headless” home media gateways.

Senior analyst Mike Paxton adds “Unit shipments of home media gateway products are on track to grow rapidly. However, the product segment is currently just a small portion of the worldwide set-top box market. For example, in 2013 home media gateway product shipments are projected to account for just 4% of total set-top box unit shipments.”