According to a new research report by NPD In-Stat, Internet-enabled TV devices, including Smart TVs, connected Blu-Ray players, game consoles, and streaming media players continue to grow their footprint within consumers’ homes. 17 million US households currently own a connected TV, and ownership of streaming media players has nearly doubled since the end of 2010. Yet only a fraction of consumers that own an Internet-capable TV device actually connects it to the Internet to become over-the-top (OTT) video consumers. Despite this hurdle, the growing base of OTT-Video-capable US households is propelling the revenue for online video-on-demand (VoD) and electronic-sell-through (EST) to double by 2015.
“OTT video is continuing to grow, overcoming the barriers of low device connect rates and cumbersome user interfaces,” says Keith Nissen, Research Director. “Even stronger growth of I-VOD and EST video services is possible if device manufacturers and digital retailers can put together a simpler, plug-n-play solution for getting online video to the TV (web-to-TV). The proliferation of tablets is also contributing to OTT growth.”
Some of the other factors affecting the OTT video market:
- Streaming video transactions will reach just under 1 billion in 2010.
- Netflix and other S-VOD suppliers are shifting to a more TV-centric model and will soon be competing directly with HBO, Showtime, and Starz.
- The collaborative and competitive models among physical and digital retailers, content owners, and pay TV operators are shifting rapidly as players in the ecosystem grapple with the evolving mix of physical versus digital channels, EST, pay-TV, OTT, and subscription VoD.
