Nearly 55% of all TV households in the Americas will have access to Internet video by the end of 2010, with 25% of these capable of displaying Internet video on the television screen, according to a new report from IMS Research.
“Now that retailers are actively marketing Internet-enabled devices, we can expect to see mass market adoption," said Rebecca Kurlak, Analystfor Consumer Elextronics at IMS Research. "As Blu-ray players have begun to offer price points that fall below US$ 199, this price reduction will create a domino effect on other CE device prices. This has already been observed by actions taken by the game console market in Q3 2009. We currently estimate that by the end of 2010, 35% of TV shipments in the Americas will have Internet connectivity built-in. It will take about five years for the gap to close between connected TVs and other devices. Consumers continue to select devices that offer ease of use, and it just makes it easier for the consumer to seamlessly search for content on one device. Plus, there is no additional set up involved, which continues to be a hurdle for many of the devices on the market.”
Ms. Kurlak added: “Of course, game consoles already have the lead in this segment, which can mostly be attributed to gamer demographics. And, it’s great that game console manufacturers have continued to evolve their position in this space. But, it will become more of a necessity that they continue to re-invent their value adds. I think that even gamers will switch to accessing Internet video mostly on the TV in order to have a one-stop access point to the different content libraries.