Analyst tips Apple as major set-top box vendor

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 22 February 2007 10:39

Your IT - Home IT

Deutsche Bank analyst Chris Whitemore believes Apple could take as much as one-third of the $US26 billion market for set-top boxes in the next few years, eating into the shares held by Microsoft and Sony. Like the Apple TV, those companies' Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 games consoles can be used to play audio and video content.

An extra $US7 billion of revenue wouldn't do the company's figures any harm, assuming the Apple TV and its successors are profitable. This could mean an increase in earnings per share to the tune of $US0.50 or even more.

Whitemore is tipping first-year sales of two million units for the Apple TV, and predicts it will eventually have an impact on DVD and CD player sales. Whether the sale of movies and TV shows through the iTunes Store will similarly impinge on DVD sales remains to be seen. People may stick to adding TV tuners to their computers for off-air recording, and ripping purchased DVDs for playback via the Apple TV.
 
The Apple TV - which features 802.11n WiFi and a 40G drive capable of storing up to 50G of video - is due to ship this month for $A449/$US299. One concern is that it supports a relatively small range of codecs: H.264 and MPEG-4, but not others that are in common use such as AVI and DivX.