The U.S. Congress mandate that all analog television transmissions cease by early 2009 is spurring accelerated sales of digital televisions (DTVs) and boosting the growth of the associated DTV chip market.
DTV shipments are rising as the transition from analog to digital broadcast draws near, increasing by a whopping 70% in 2006 to reach 68 million units— and then another 42% in 2007 to hit 97.4 million units. Many other national governments are implementing similar mandates to keep pace with the digital transition, propelling further DTV shipment growth in overseas markets.
The U.S. and foreign mandates have forced television set makers to design new TVs with integrated digital tuners. This will cause total semiconductor revenue for the DTV market to grow to almost $11.5 billion in 2010, up from about $4.34 billion in 2005.
Integrated DTV sets include a terrestrial digital tuner and demodulator, an MPEG-2 decoder to decode digital content, and a display processor. Integrated DTV semiconductor content varies from $25 to $30 for low-end implementations up to $40 to $50 for high-end systems.
LCD TVs are the leading type of DTV, accounting for 47.5% of the market in 2005. Because of this, the majority of DTV chips are being targeted at the LCD TV segment. The LCD TV share of the DTV semiconductor market will rise to 78.2% in 2010, up from 43.4% in 2005. Chip suppliers that would like to cash in on the highest-growth portion of the DTV market should concentrate on that segment.