The number of multiscreen devices receiving services from the world’s top 43 pay TV operators is set to catch up the installed base of set top boxes by sometime in 2015, according to media survey group IHS Screen Digest. The survey predicts that these pay TV operators will supply TV services to 310 million active multiscreen devices by 2015, compared with 322 million set-top boxes. This represents a 51-percent share of the receiving device population for set tops, down from 82 percent today.
In volume terms the global set-top box market for multiscreen services will still grow, by 17 percent, between 2011 and 2015, but the number of multi-screen devices receiving pay TV services will increase 4x over the same period.
