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Study: DVR adoption on the rise
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Posted by: MediaLivingRoom

Study: DVR adoption on the rise

By Dinesh C. Sharma
Special to CNET News.com
http://news.com.com/2100-1041-5182035.html

Story last modified March 30, 2004, 12:34 PM PST

Digital video recorders are set to break out of their niche, and they have pay TV providers to thank for the movement.
Market researcher IDC said Tuesday that DVRs are finally catching on in increasing numbers with American consumers. At the end of 2003, there were 3.2 million DVR households in the United States, and the tally is poised for compound annual growth of 47 percent through 2008, to reach 28 million.

The rising adoption of DVRs--which use a hard drive to record television shows--has much to do with the competition between cable and satellite television providers. Initially, satellite providers promoted DVR-equipped set-top boxes to match cable companies' investment in video-on-demand, and now, the cable industry is being forced to respond, IDC said.

That trend may account for the relatively low market penetration of devices from TiVo, a company that has been practically synonymous with the product category. Despite the strong brand, TiVo accounts for just 39 percent of the U.S. market, according to IDC.

"For the first time, the DVR vendors are getting through to people and showing them that these devices are more than just high-priced VCRs," Greg Ireland, senior research analyst at IDC, said in a statement. "The pay TV providers can take a lot of the credit, and reap the rewards, for finally breaking through to consumers."

While the DVR market in Western Europe resembles that of the United States, Japanese consumers are starting to look to combination DVR/DVD-recording devices. Those hybrids will see shipments of 11.8 million in 2008, adding up to nearly 40 percent of the worldwide market, with the vast majority of the shipments occurring beyond the U.S. market, IDC said.

Posted by: drewman

quote:
Originally posted by MediaLivingRoom
Despite the strong brand, TiVo accounts for just 39 percent of the U.S. market, according to IDC.

A box that costs at a minimum of $149 (and this price just happened) plus $13 a month has 39 percent of the market against:

ReplayTV (unknown market share)

Dish (1 million + boxes sold)

cable providers (who rent them for $5 -$10 a month with no upfront fees most of the time).

Combo DVD recorder/ hard drive recorders

That's pretty good marketshare against its competitors, some of whom almost give away their PVRs. I am guessing the other 61% is split up between the above and TiVo has the highest penetration otherwise CNET would have trumpeted the 'fall' of TiVo even harder...

quote:

While the DVR market in Western Europe resembles that of the United States, Japanese consumers are starting to look to combination DVR/DVD-recording devices. Those hybrids will see shipments of 11.8 million in 2008, adding up to nearly 40 percent of the worldwide market, with the vast majority of the shipments occurring beyond the U.S. market, IDC said.

You mean hybrids like the Pioneer TiVo and soon to market Samsung TiVo player/recorders that are already on the market? Hybrids that many of their competitors above haven't even announced and probably won't produce?

CNET taketh away with one hand and giveth with the other.

Andrew

Posted by: Morlac

Interesting, but notice how 39 percent now is presented as a poor market penetration when it's related to Tivo ("despite the strong brand...just 39 percent of the market") wheras 40 percent market share four years from now is fine and dandy (dvd recordable dvrs, projected worldwide sales in 2008).

:rolleyes:

Posted by: mlorenz

I contacted Time Warner (I have cable TV + RoadRunner through them, for years) - they market a poor excuse for a DVR and customers don't like it (mostly cuz it doesn't work well). I asked them when they would have a TiVo agreement and they said:

"I am sorry but we do not have any intentions of adding TiVo service at this time. It will require special equipment as well as asking our customers to sign up for another service. We are trying to make our product as comparable to TiVo as possible."

I threatened to go to satellite to get TiVo, but they don't apparently care about losing my business. (BTW, i have a TiVo 1 and a DVD/TiVo 2 combo, i just wanted the cable co. to do business w/TiVo!)

I keep hoping @ least ONE cable co. would pull its head out for a win/win, but i guess they would rather keep shafting customers (ok, so they charge less for their box, but their box is WORTHLESS, so what does that matter?!) and getting all the $$ for themselves...

Does anyone know if there's any chance that ComCast will do business w/TiVo? I really want to ensure that TiVo doesn't go away - i've seen a good product lose out to inferior competitors too many times.

Posted by: jmoak

"At the end of 2003, there were 3.2 million DVR households in the United States"
"That trend may account for the relatively low market penetration of devices from TiVo, a company that has been practically synonymous with the product category. Despite the strong brand, TiVo accounts for just 39 percent of the U.S. market, according to IDC."

Assuming that the statement "3.2 million DVR households in the United States" is correct ...
and taking total Tivo sub numbers from their 4th quarter SEC filing:
Total Tivo Subscriptions 1,332,000 or 41.625% of the DVR households in the United States

...and echostar's number of 1,000,000 dvr subs in 3rd quarter of last year, plus 350,000 IF their growth equaled Tivo's (it's hard to tell, Echostar does not publish their dvr sub numbers):
Total Echostar DVR Subscriptions 1,350,000 or 42.1875% of the DVR households in the United States

That leaves 518,000 DVR subs for the rest of the market, or 16.1875% of the DVR households in the United States.

IDC considers that a relatively low market penetration of devices from TiVo????

Wow.
Is that an example of the "New Math" I keep hearing about?

(woops! shoulda hit refresh before I posted!!)
:)

Posted by: dmdeane

quote:
Originally posted by mlorenz
"I am sorry but we do not have any intentions of adding TiVo service at this time. It will require special equipment as well as asking our customers to sign up for another service. We are trying to make our product as comparable to TiVo as possible."

Even their spin and FUD is a flat out lie, since the whole point of TiVo's marketing approach to the cable and satellite providers is to set up situations like what they have with DirecTV, where the provider collects the fees and provides the hardware, and there is no "special equipment" or "another service" for the customer to buy or rent, except for what the provider supplies to the subscriber.

The reality is that cable companies still are monopolies, and would rather present an inferior product provided they control it, and would rather have 100% control over a closed market, than have less than 100% control over an open (but expanding) market that they could grow in. They like things the way they are, and want to make things stop unless they change on terms that they dictate.

Posted by: Bigg

Opencable will end the cable company monopoly on the boxes thing. And TiVo may very well have to drop the SA line b/c of pricing, and they may very well make a lot of money from it, but they could probably stay in business just from the D* deal.

Posted by: smak

Weren't a very nice portion of dish pvr's given away flat out?

-smak-

Posted by: dmdeane

quote:
Originally posted by Bigg
Opencable will end the cable company monopoly on the boxes thing. And TiVo may very well have to drop the SA line b/c of pricing, and they may very well make a lot of money from it, but they could probably stay in business just from the D* deal.

I hope this does happen, but standalones won't ever go away entirely, due to their flexibility in being able to work with any kind of set up, cable, satellite, or OTA. Not unless, perhaps, the open cable TiVo boxes also come with "stand alone functionality" that they can also be used to record satellite and OTA, and are made in sufficient quantities to be cheap enough for users not committed to cable.

Posted by: mattack

quote:
Originally posted by smak
Weren't a very nice portion of dish pvr's given away flat out?

-smak-

You can still get DishPVRs free (with the standard committment)... even a few of them.

I don't have _any_ satellite service.. but this is pretty intriguing. I don't know if you can
do any padding on the DishPVRs though (a necessary feature, IMHO).

Posted by: classicsat

It's not really that a cable operator will not choose tivo (which would take an investment to develop an integrated cable ready Tivo, and the headend hardware to support it), it is more like they are more or less obligated to
the hardware provided by the security provider.