Amino Technologies Share Discussion Threads

[dickbush] 29/8/2007 16:36

I'm still in for what, I hope, will be a good second half, but I would like to see the cv of the new man.

[sea7] 28/8/2007 11:53

although it may just be that he feels it is time to move on, as his cv shows
that from 1988 to 1995 own business then 1995 to 1998 at pi research, then 1998 until now at amino, we have all left jobs etc for no other reason than simply wanting a new direction or challenge etc... The company seems ok and he
is leaving behind a good technical team which he has managed, so i expect that
one of the team has already taken on his duties especially seeing as they have
in house technology.

I am not unduly worried, which is based on recent news from the company etc..
I still hold amo and i also note that there has been no flurry of selling and
no share price movement on the back of this news.

[dickbush] 28/8/2007 09:54

Chief Technology Officer, who has been with them since the begining, leaving the company. He has a pretty impressive c.v.. So not a very good sign.

[dickbush] 17/7/2007 12:06

Thanks, sea7. Obviously, the dollar taking another leg down isn't going to help the cause.

I don't know who turned up at their post results presentations yesterday, but I couldn't find any comment at all in the FT, Times, Telegraph or Independent. So I guess the current price reflects that there is little or no interest in AMO's story. Now under the heading of "show me". Fair enough.

[dickbush] 16/7/2007 16:40

sea7

I'm very happy to see that the first half has shown the end of the hiccup that was last year's second half. However, with its normal heavy bias of revenue in the second half, I'm concentrating on y/y comparisons to get a feel for the business. Apart from what I said above, this shows licensing revenues unchanged y/y and a small increase in the remainder which is almost entirely stb's. Obviously, the big decline in the dollar has had a negative impact on revenue and, to a lesser extent, on the operating and pre tax figures. However, 20% growth in stb's y/y including a small decline in MPEG-2 shipments and 45,000 MPEG-4 's (v nil) still only resulted in break-even pre tax after adjusting for the dollar's decline. So I think "unexciting" fairly describes the figures. My hope is that AMO is now in the position I thought it was a year ago: ready to make a very substantial increase in overall shipments of stb's (v the 1st half)and an improved mix resulting in an improved average selling price and a profitable year overall.

[dickbush] 16/7/2007 11:56

Turnover flat y/y with UK, Europe and Africa decline compensated by Asia Pacific. North America flat y/y. Not much to get excited about except that the declining trend of last year's second half has been halted/reversed. Have to hope that the usual (except last year) second half seasonality kicks in. "The Board expects to build on the solid performance over the last six months and to further improve the financial performance in the second half of the year and beyond."

Note "...the many market surveys in recent months have not read market development as accurately as may be wished; as a result we are taking a cautious view on the latest growth predictions for MPEG-4 demand. We believe that the overestimation has been due to the delays the industry has seen in the adoption by customers of the total eco-system integration. It is also clear that MPEG-4 HD shipment will be constrained to those network operators that already have sufficient network capacity or until they have installed it."

[sea7] 04/7/2007 14:15

interims on mon 16th july.

price has been running up nicely over the last few days
nice to see!!

[dickbush] 03/7/2007 20:36

IPTV will generate big bucks, drive interactive services and have lethargic take-rates, depending on whose research is cited. iSuppli, a market research firm out of El Segundo, Calif., sees the IPTV market hitting $5.79 billion in just four years, a 14-fold increase from $422.7 million in 2006. Just what was included in that calculation was not clear, because last August, iSuppli predicted the IPTV subscriber base would generate $27 billion in 2010. (iSuppli did not respond to Fierce queries by press time.)

The firm also foresaw a worldwide IPTV sub base of 63 million by 2010, up from 2.4 million in 2005--a "stunning" compound annual growth rate of more than 92 percent, it said.

Research from SNL Kagan in Monterey, Calif., said au contraire, at least from the telcoTV perspective. Kagan's "Telco TV Outlook" predicts "modest" rates on telco video services through 2011, given the cost and complexity of laying thousands of miles of fiber.

Vendors will nonetheless fare well, according to Infonetics Research of Campbell, Calif., which anticipates two- to threefold growth in that segment between 2006 and 2010. Set-tops will be a big piece of that growth as IPTV services actually reach homes.

Then Pyramid Research in Cambridge, Mass., broke out anticipated revenues from video-on-demand, a model the company considers ideal for IPTV. Globally, Pyramid said VOD over IPTV would generate $4.7 billion in 2012, equating 18 percent of total IPTV revenues, and up from $121 million in 2006.

[dickbush] 02/7/2007 15:18

AMO appears to have broken out on the upside.

[sea7] 21/6/2007 20:54

found this on business wire



June 18, 2007 10:22 AM Eastern Daylight Time
Amino Releases New High Definition, PVR-Capable Set-Top Box for Advanced IPTV Solutions at NXTcomm 2007
World leader in IPTV technology to demonstrate the benefits of a cost-effective, flexible platform enabling operators to deploy revenue-generating IPTV services

NXTcomm 2007
Booth 2023
CAMBRIDGE, UK & CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Amino, the world leading IPTV platform supplier, today announced the release of its newest high definition (HD) product, the Personal Video Recorder (PVR/DVR) enabled AmiNET530, at NXTcomm 2007 in Chicago. At booth #2023, Amino will showcase the AmiNET530 as a fundamental component of a service provider's multiplay strategy, by offering cutting edge, high quality on-demand, IPTV, PVR, gaming and HD services to end-user consumers using MPEG-2/4 codecs.

The AmiNET530 is a next-generation IPTV Set-Top Box (STB) that provides the ability to decode low bit-rate MPEG-4 (AVC/H.264) video streams and is capable of supporting HD video and graphics. With PVR functionality, the AmiNET530 can act as a hub for all the services and applications used for playing, recording and streaming video – it also includes Amino's reliable, cross-platform IntActTM client software that ensures compatibility with an extensive range of middleware and conditional access systems.

The AmiNET530's video on demand feature gives consumers the ability to select and view video content in an interactive, real-time setting. This feature, combined with the product's PVR capabilities, meets the ultimate demand from consumers today-freedom to make their own choices.

"NXTcomm is the perfect place for us to unveil our most advanced product yet. Surrounded by leaders from around the world seeking the best in the converged communications industry, we have the opportunity to demonstrate our commitment to excellence with the development of technology that connects the consumer to the expanding universe of IPTV services and devices," said Rick Sailor, VP Sales Americas at Amino. "We also understand that service providers face the challenge of reducing customer churn, increasing ARPU and offering its customers access to content anytime and anywhere. The AmiNET530 not only meets this demand, but also gives providers the peace of mind knowing they have a competitive advantage – IPTV HD MPEG-4 PVR support from the most experienced and innovative company in the market."

The most notable features of the AmiNET530 are the following:

PVR functionality –The flexibility of features such as pause and play of live TV, instant record and instant replay are key buying requirements for consumers and a significant factor for service providers seeking to reduce churn. The AmiNET530 also offers the ability to schedule recording of multiple HDTV streams simultaneously, unlike traditional cable or satellite PVRs which are restricted by the number of tuners they include.

High definition - The support of HD video offers an exciting and dramatic viewing experience, with greater realism and detail especially in large display formats. In addition to HD video the AmiNET530 also supports HD graphics, which offers the service operator the ability to display more information on the screen. The AmiNET530 provides the opportunity to add value to the consumer and create new revenue streams with personalised services such as weather forecasts, stock quotes, or targeted advertising.

More channels to more people - The support of low-bit rate advanced video codecs provides operators with the opportunity to grow revenue generating services while maximising the efficient use of network bandwidth, creating the ability to reach a greater number of subscribers, increase the number of available interactive and multicast channels, and enhance the viewing experience with HD channels.

Low cost deployment –The AmiNET530 uses high performance single chip technology for economical deployment of leading edge services.

Proven reliable platform – The AmiNET530 leverages the established and proven wide range of integrations with industry leading partners, on Amino's proven IntAct IPTV client software platform. Amino will use its established partnerships with leading technology providers to accelerate the growth and profitability of evolving IPTV services.

Flexible platform – The AmiNET530 plays a pivotal role in home entertainment system. Its flexibility will ensure it meets consumers' future requirements.

Amino's customer base has grown steeply - its STBs have been deployed and trialed in over 80 countries worldwide. In April 2007, ABI Research declared Amino the world's leading seller of IPTV STBs for the second consecutive year. This accolade recognises Amino's expanding footprint in emerging markets, as well as within the growing US market.

About NXTcomm 2007

NXTcomm will bring together top executives from every segment of the global industry to exhibit, explore new business opportunities and buy the latest technologies driving the converged communications and entertainment industry. Showcasing hundreds of new and innovative products, the NXTcomm exhibit floor will reflect the dramatic changes in the industry. The show will also feature a broad range of educational programming. For more information, go to

NXTcomm, the new industry venue co-owned by the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) and the United States Telecom Association (USTelecom) that will feature the business and technology of communications, information and entertainment, comes to Chicago's McCormick Place June 18-21, 2007. NXTcomm will unite the premier information and communications technology (ICT) industry supplier and technology companies with the world's leading communications and entertainment companies that are together driving broadband-based innovation.

About Amino Communications

Amino Communications (www.aminocom.com) supplies the AmiNET™ series of set-top boxes (STBs), renowned for their low-cost and reliability. The AmiNET range materially reduces service operators' capital expenditure, whilst offering the full range of specification required; MPEG2 and MPEG4 encoding standards, standard and high definition TV, personal video recording and home networking. The high performance coupled with the innovative design of Amino's set-top boxes, has brought the series industry accolades and the company a leading position within the IPTV market.

The AmiNET series of IPTV STBs has been used in commercial deployments and trials in over 80 countries worldwide. Amino's principal customers are telecommunications, broadcast and hospitality service operators. Generally, AmiNET products are supplied with the IntAct™ IPTV software stack pre-loaded.

Amino Communications is a wholly owned subsidiary of Amino Technologies plc. listed on the London Stock Exchange AIM, symbol AMO. Amino's HQ is based near Cambridge, UK, with offices worldwide.

[dickbush] 20/6/2007 16:50

darrin

Cancellation of the share premium account doesn't mean its value is no longer in the balance sheet. Moat likely applied to the profit and loss reserve which was negative at year end. Now positive, this allows, as the statement says, dividends to be paid and/or shares to be bought back. The only way this boosts the share price is via these two options being used. I would assume that the management is more likely to buy back shares at some price that they think is very low relative to THEIR view of its value. Should provide some sort of base for the share price once we see where it is used.

I used your link to avsforum to tell them about the latest Amino stb. One or two were frustrated at the lack of PVR capability of prior offerings from Surewest.

Just a matter of opinion, but I feel that retaining the NRTC account is bigger news. Every stb supplier has been sniffing around the account.

[darrin1471] 20/6/2007 14:51

I assumed the latest rise was due to the SureWest RNS of "a major deployment of its latest MPEG-4 / MPEG-2 HD (high definition) AmiNET130 set-top box".
SureWest have been a customer of Amino since 2004 and the RNS did not mention numbers so I am a disappointed to learn that SureWest only added 788 video customers in the last quarter and 3369 in the last year making a total of 20445.

An MPEG4 stb without a DVR will sell for less than £100, so annual sales are around £300k.
It does worry me that a £300k order can be described as a "major deployment".
The following link follows user experiences SureWest's IPTV deployment and mentions Amino stbs often. The last few posts mention the AmiNET130.


Can anybody explain the implications of 07/06/07 RNS "cancellation of the Share Premium Account".
Could the major shareholders be boosting the share price up so that they get a higher price from Amino for their shares?

[dylanl] 20/6/2007 12:44

Wonder if Amino will integrate with Microsoft's offering, things going well for MAino of late....

Yesterday, Microsoft announced that the latest generation of its Internet Protocol Television (IPTV)-based software, previously called Microsoft TV IPTV Edition, will now be branded as MediaRoom. This software, which will ship solely in TV set-top boxes from broadband service providers such as AT&T, BT Group, and Deutsche Telekom, adds several new features, some of which are aimed at improving connectivity between TVs and traditional PCs.

"Microsoft is committed to providing our IPTV customers with the very best software platform so they can take full advantage of their intelligent, two-way IP networks, and begin deploying richer and more personalized TV and connected entertainment experiences," said Microsoft Corporate Vice President Enrique Rodriguez. "With personal media sharing and new application development capabilities, Microsoft Mediaroom brings the consumer television experience to a new level, enabling the best in TV, plus access to all your media in one place."

As suggested by its new name, MediaRoom adds several connectivity- related experiences, including personal media sharing between MediaRoom-based set-top boxes and digital photos and music stored on PCs, a Multimedia Application Environment for video, picture, and text interaction with Web services, a picture-in-picture (PIP) feature called MultiView, and Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) capabilities, the latter of which is crucial for European TV markets.

Although Microsoft hasn't yet created much of a market for its IP- based TV offerings, the company notes that consumers in the United States, Germany, the UK, and France are already using Mediaroom-based services. The company is currently partnering with 18 service providers worldwide.

[dickbush] 19/6/2007 22:03

This probably explains today's move. This could be a very big deal.

Here Comes SES AMERICOM's Complete IPTV Solution

After some final trials and tweaking, SES AMERICOM said today that its end-to-end IPTV solution, IP-PRIME, is commercially available. IP-PRIME has received extensive and successful technical trials with large, medium and small sized telcos across the United States, and is now available to any North American telco looking for a turnkey solution to offer their customers a world-class television service.

SES AMERICOM's IP-PRIME gives telecommunications companies the ability to offer television together with their other services. It goes without saying that adding television service can be complex and expensive, but IP-PRIME minimizes the risk of a complex technical integration, simplifies difficult program acquisition challenges and lowers their financial risks for launching a television service.

The solution developed by SES AMERICOM gives telcos and private network operators everything they need to deliver a fully-featured television service over existing network infrastructures:

An array of programming channel options

A carrier-grade headend

A choice of consumer set-top boxes (Amino and Cisco/Scientific Atlanta)

Multiple middleware solutions that make it all work

Customers benefit from SES AMERICOM's expertise in television distribution, helping ensure that customers select a proven technical solution, thus reducing both the technical risk and financial cost of deploying a new video service. The IP-PRIME solution not only delivers high-quality video, it also saves customers millions of dollars of capital and operational expenditures when compared to the costs of building their own service.

"SES AMERICOM has utilized our decades of experience to build an IPTV solution that is the closest thing to flicking a switch to turn on service," said Bill Squadron, senior vice president of media partnerships at SES AMERICOM. "We invested tens of millions of dollars and over two years developing IP-PRIME, and put the solution through extensive testing so we can be sure we're offering our customers the most complete, easiest-to-deploy and most cost-effective path for them to offer their subscribers television service. The result of our efforts is that SES AMERICOM is the first company to bring an end-to-end, satellite-based television service to market built completely on the new MPEG-4 video standard."

The entire solution is based on the MPEG-4 digital video standard that offers improved video quality together with greater bandwidth efficiency over the MPEG-2 standard. The MPEG-4 standard makes IP-PRIME particularly ideal for enabling networks to accommodate numerous applications and features, as well as accommodate the explosive growth in HDTV channels.

The IP-PRIME ecosystem employs open, standards-based technologies from multiple world-class technology partners. SES AMERICOM tests and qualifies each third-party technology or middleware component before integrating it into IP-PRIME. By using open standards and ensuring interoperability, SES AMERICOM is providing customers with options, and ensuring that their service is leading edge today and well into the future.

IP-PRIME comes with existing transport agreements for over 275 television channels and over 100 digital music channels, giving customers the easiest way to offer a broad range of diverse programming. This program line up includes over 20 HDTV channels, as well as pay per view programming and the ability to offer video-on-demand service. Customers can pick and choose which channels to include in their line-up, and can easily integrate local programming.

"Because of SES AMERICOM's years of leadership and technical innovation in broadcast television, we selected IP-PRIME as the exclusive end-to-end IPTV service for our rural telco members," said Steve Bing, senior vice president of the National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative (NRTC). "Our members tell us that IPTV service will be a critical component of their service portfolio, and SES AMERICOM is giving them the easiest path to a very comprehensive service. With IP-PRIME, NRTC members will have the fastest path to bring to market a complete and technically advanced television service."

IP-PRIME is commercially available as of today. For more information visit www.ip-prime.tv.

[dickbush] 26/5/2007 16:44

From PC Pro

My BT Vision of hell 9:49AM, Tuesday 22nd May 2007

A few months ago, desperately wanting a Sky+ box but refusing to pay hundreds of pounds for one, I ditched Sky - much to the horror of my family - and signed up for BT Vision.
As I was already a BT Broadband customer, it seemed like a great deal - a free set-top box with PVR functionality, and just £90 for setup and installation. Plus, I liked the idea of downloading movies when I fancied for around £3, so I got rid of our online DVD subscription too. Quids in, I thought.

A couple of months later, BT emailed me to say it was ready to test my line and check whether I could receive Freeview. With both of these boxes ticked, a helpful engineer came round to set up the box and configure the Home Hub wireless router on the promised date.

Once the box was in place and connected to the hub, it took three goes for the start-up to work. The engineer recommended a hard restart each time, which involved pulling out the mains cable and pushing it back in after a short wait. There are safer ways to reboot, as I discovered later.

The initial downside of the installation was that the hub had to be moved from the centre of the house, where it worked perfectly, to next to the Vision box, which has led to patchy wireless reception in some parts of the house and no reception at all in the garden. The BT engineer assured me there was no way to boost the signal or get a second box installed elsewhere, which puts an end to me enjoying the sun while working outside. However, the Freeview reception is good; in fact, it's considerably better than the built-in receiver in my TV. The PVR works well too, and is only let down by the patchy programme information. I soon got the hang of recording programmes, and even the kids forgave me for losing all their Sky channels when they realised I could set the box to record whole series of their latest favourite shows.

However, after a couple of weeks, things started to go badly wrong. The first sign was that I could no longer put the box into standby. Then I tried to download a film from the on-demand section: this played for 20 minutes and froze, with an error message saying to call technical support.

I tried restarting the box and hub, but to no avail, so resorted to the helpline. I initially got through to the broadband helpdesk, who had no idea what I was talking about and eventually found someone who at least knew what BT Vison was. Although very pleasant, they just told me to try a reboot. Of course, this still didn't work, so I called back and asked not to be charged for the film, only to be told that someone would call back in a couple of days. Not surprisingly, they didn't and a few weeks later a bill dropped through the letterbox...

Meanwhile, the box started to show further signs of strain. It became almost impossible to use the system without the box freezing completely or losing functions, which could only be resolved with a reboot. This took between three and 15 minutes to complete, and wasn't always successful first time. I can't remember a day in the last two months when the box didn't have to be rebooted at least twice in the space of an evening's viewing. The problem got so bad, in fact, that I bought another Freeview box for the spare TV, so at least the kids could watch what they wanted when they wanted without a huge wait.

The call centre staff said this was a well-known problem and it will be resolved with a software upgrade. The timescale for this upgrade has ranged from 'imminent' to 'some time in the future' to 'when Microsoft amends the software'. Apparently, the PVR is partly responsible for the regular box freezes, as unlike most Freeview boxes, which get their programme information over-the-air, the V-Box gets its information via your broadband connection from a website. Theoretically, this means you can see up to two weeks of TV schedules in advance; in practice, it means I often can't see what's on TV now.

Anyway, over the past months, my day has no longer been complete without a call from someone at BT Vision, either reassuring me I won't get charged for a film I bought but couldn't watch, or asking me to restart my V-Box and Hub in a specific order - none of which works.

However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel: at the weekend I finally managed to watch one film all the way through. Not in one go, however, as I started watching at 8:10 pm, by 8:15pm the service was unavailable, and remained so until 9pm, when I could watch the remainder of the film. Yippee.

So is BT Vision ready to be released nationwide, available on the high street in John Lewis and Comet? Definitely not. It's a great idea and I would love it to work properly, but as it stands there are just too many problems that need ironing out.

And to rub salt into the wound, Sky has just announced that it's no longer going to charge £10 a month for its Sky+ box. Marvellous.

[dickbush] 22/5/2007 17:01

Set-top Box Costs Stabilizing, Spending to Grow with Volume

IMS Research estimates that the average semiconductor bill of materials cost for set-top boxes dropped 37% from 2004 to 2006, going from $59 to $37. This precipitous drop was caused primarily by rapidly falling prices for MPEG-2 core decoders chips in preparation for the transition to MPEG-4 AVC (ITU-T H.264) – both in HD and SD segments. However, IMS Research is forecasting that due to a number of factors, this trend will change, and from 2007-2011 the overall average cost of a set-top box semiconductor BOM will stay near $41.

According to analyst Stephen Froehlich, "Overall spending by set-top box makers is likely to increase as set-top box volumes grow and the product mix shifts to more advanced set-top box designs. Specifically, significant amounts of new spending will go for more hard disk drives in more DVRs and also for no-new wire or wireless network interface modules on many of the boxes being installed in multi-set-top households."

The newly-published Worldwide Market for Semiconductors and Software in Set-top Boxes – 2007 Edition covers the market for the key hardware and software technologies contributing to the set-top box bill of materials, including core MPEG decoder chips, embedded processors, hard drives, front-ends, operating systems, and interactive middleware.

Other interesting insights from the report include:
Linux will ship on more than 30% of set-tops by 2011 as increased processor performance eliminates the need for real-time operating systems.
Open standard middleware will be running on 27% of installed STBs by the end of 2011.
The rapid growth of Chinese cable and IPTV in 2006 resulted in NDS and other established conditional access vendors loosing market share to Tongfang

[sea7] 14/5/2007 16:52

over a million shares traded today.. makes a change

slightly more buys than sells.

[sea7] 09/5/2007 15:46

on business wire today

Orb and Amino Expand Partnership to Deliver Personal and Broadband Media to the TV Screen
NXTcomm 2007
Booth 2023
EMERYVILLE, Calif. & CAMBRIDGE, UK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Amino, the world leading IPTV platform supplier, and Orb Networks announced today the integration of Orb's MyCasting service with Amino's AmiNET110 and AmiNET125 set-top boxes (STBs) to unlock all the digital content on users' PCs. With Amino's cutting-edge AmiNET range of products, users can enjoy all the media they currently watch on their PCs – videos, movies, music, even Internet websites – on their TVs.

The AmiNET110 is the most popular and proven IP STB in the world with an award-winning design. The Orb application integrated with the AmiNET110 allows consumers access to personal media on the PC, as well as streamed media delivered over the open Internet. The resulting product closes the gap between the STB and the PC, using the Orb MyCast application platform as the bridge. The MyCasting service is also now available with the AmiNET125, Amino's second generation multi-codec STB. This allows MPEG-2/4 and VC1/WM9 content to be streamed in native format from the PC to the TV, enabling even older PCs with less horsepower to benefit from the Orb MyCasting application.

"We are happy to be working with Amino to bring media convergence to the TV", said Herve Utheza, VP and Executive Producer, TV Properties, Orb Networks. "With Orb, Amino's product line will enable a single STB to manage IPTV, pay TV, PC media including movies, videos, user-generated videos, and even web browsing, directly to the TV through a unified user interface. Service operators can bring their own branded version of Orb to their customer base, and let them appreciate the depth and breadth of what IP television can deliver."

"Orb's technology was integrated seamlessly with Amino's versatile IntActTM client software stack to bridge the gap between the television and PC," said Karthik Ranjan, Vice President, Internet TV, Amino. "This partnership expands the boundaries of television, allowing cable companies and other service operators to offer their consumers an exciting and diverse range of services."

Orb MyCasting and Amino's STBs enable a much more compelling choice of services in comparison to traditional TV programming. Users can:

Watch home movies and videos, as well as thousands of Internet TV stations, now unlocked for display on the big screen TV
Search for and watch the entire online video catalog from main providers such as YouTube, Yahoo, AOL Videos and more
Record Internet TV programming to watch on your living room TV
Enjoy your photos from your PC on your TV, share them with family and friends, or watch their own media selection on your TV
Listen to your entire music library, streamed across the home

[darrin1471] 03/4/2007 12:59

IPTV subscribers set to double in Europe

The European market for IPTV (internet protocol television) will double in 2007, according to the latest figures from media analysts, Screen Digest.

Looking at the 54 IPTV services across Europe, the survey shows that IPTV is the fastest growing pay-TV platform, outstripping all other platforms combined.

Screen Digest forecasts that subscriptions to IPTV services across Europe will almost double from 2.9 million in 2006 to 5.6 million in 2007, with subscription revenues from IPTV increasing from €470 million to over €1 billion. Almost 1 million of those new customers will be in France.

In the UK, analysts forecast that subscriber numbers will grow from 80,000 to 300,000 by the end of this year. BT has recently launched its service, with Tiscali and France Telecom to follow in the autumn.

The top five IPTV operators in Europe - Orange, Telefónica, Free Telecom, Neuf Telecom and Fastweb - accounted for 60% of the total IPTV market in the five countries at the end of 2006.

Screen Digest expects that these operators will remain in their respective positions throughout 2007, with Neuf Telecom and Free Telecom vying for second place in France.

Digital terrestrial television (DTT) is one of the main driving forces of IPTV uptake in France, Spain and the UK, with ten IPTV services using hybrid DTT/IPTV boxes in the three markets.

Such services are popular because they allow customers to access the DTT channels for free, and give them the option to take pay-TV and Video on Demand (VoD). BT in the UK and France's Darty are two operators using this model, with Italy's Rai currently trialling it.

Screen Digest analyst, Richard Broughton, said: "2007 is set to be the strongest year yet for IPTV. Companies which launched their services last year will be marketing in earnest, while those already established are well placed to build on last year's success."

[darrin1471] 27/3/2007 15:15

Amino Ranked World Leader in IPTV Set-Top Box Market for Second Year Running

CAMBRIDGE, England--(BUSINESS WIRE)--ABI Research has declared Amino the global leading vendor of IPTV set-top boxes for the second consecutive year.

The accolade recognises the world leading IPTV platform supplier's significant growth in emerging markets, as well as the growing US market. Amino's customer base increased to over 1,500 organisations and its set-top boxes have been deployed and trialled in over 50 countries worldwide.

In its journey to becoming the world's principal vendor, Amino received the 2006 NAB award for Innovation in Media. The NAB spring convention is the world's largest electronic media show covering the development, delivery and management of professional video and audio content across all media. Amino was the only set-top box vendor obtaining this award in the Content Delivery category.

Other key milestones for Amino in 2006 included the introduction of four next generation set-top box products supporting advanced video codecs, enabling the first wireless IPTV connected home deployments in America and Europe, along with the first IPTV HD service and the first IPTV MPEG-4 service in the US.

Michael Arden, Principal Analyst, Broadband and Multimedia Research at ABI Research commented: "The IPTV STB market has begun an aggressive growth period, and the ability to provide cost-effective, feature-rich solutions will be key to maintaining market share. To remain competitive in the market, companies must shape their STB product lines to meet the growing demands of operators for multiple features supported on a variety of compression standards."

"We've been able to maintain such a strong position in the IPTV industry by taking advantage of the opportunities presented by emerging markets," said Bob Giddy, CEO at Amino. "These markets are important and will grow alongside our established US and European business."

[darrin1471] 19/3/2007 16:28

I stumbled across this today. More from Colin Dixon of The Diffusion Group.
"According to Dixon, given the trend toward greater market consolidation, the future of the independent IPTV STB maker looks bleak. The early IPTV STB market has been populated by a number of smaller players, but
when established players and old-world market behemoths such as Motorola and SA begin to move, acquisition and alignment become key survival strategies. For 2006, TDG has forecast that current vendors will continue to see
healthy growth as shipments are expected to increase 100% over 2005. However, growth is expected to stall in 2007 and decline dramatically through 2010. Non-aligned STB vendors will be left to fight over one million STB shipments in 2010 while the top two vendors will deliver nearly 90% of the 10m units expected to be shipped that year.
In terms of possible consolidation, TDG identifies "a number of interesting pairings." It notes that Amino has had a very close relationship with NEC for most of its life and the two continue to be close partners with several customers."
The rest of the article is an interesting read.


I share some of PADI 99's distain of the analysts forecast for 2010 especially the 90% market share for the top two vendors, however if this is a widely held point of view amongst analysts and investors then it may partially explain Amino's share price performance.

[dickbush] 09/3/2007 23:45

Amino didn't win. Advanced Digtal Broadcasting won.