Sam McLaughlin
All work

A global set-top box market share service

Each quarter, a forecast model turned pay-TV subscribers into set-top box shipments, then into shipments, revenues and market shares for each box maker. I put the quarterly update together, mapped the suppliers behind it and delivered the results to subscribers.

The question

Set-top box makers, chip vendors, pay-TV operators and investors all want to know how many boxes are shipping, who is supplying them, where, and where the market is heading. Very few companies publish these numbers directly, so the answer has to be modelled from the bottom up and then checked against what companies do report.

How the model works

The research service ran on a large set of linked forecasting workbooks. The steps I owned are highlighted.

  1. Subscriber dataPay-TV subscribers for each operator by platform and feature (HD, DVR, 4K/UHD), supplied by a dedicated subscriber research team.
  2. Box requirementsSubscribers turned into boxes needed each year, allowing for multiple boxes per home, churn, box failures and realistic order sizes.
  3. Prices and revenueAverage selling prices by box type and region, turning shipments into revenue.
  4. Supplier mappingWhich manufacturer supplies each operator's boxes, plus conditional access and middleware suppliers where possible.My work
  5. Vendor sharesEach operator's shipments split between its suppliers, then rolled up into shipments, revenues and market shares by vendor, region and platform.
  6. Reconciling with reported resultsBox makers' published financials used to check and bound the modelled numbers, so vendor shares stand up to scrutiny.My work: vendor financials
  7. Quarterly outputsQuarterly figures, the Market Monitor report and an interactive dashboard for subscribers.My work

What I did

  • Mapped suppliers to operators: which set-top box manufacturers supplied which pay-TV operators, and conditional access and middleware suppliers where possible. This is the deal-level data that vendor market shares are built on.
  • Tracked vendor financials: updated reported results and estimates for the main set-top box manufacturers, which the model is reconciled against.
  • Put the quarterly update together for around 40 leading manufacturers, across cable, satellite, terrestrial, IPTV and streaming boxes in every region.
  • Delivered the results: the quarterly Market Monitor report and the interactive data dashboard (I'm named as lead author), plus the qualitative research and commentary that explain the numbers.
  • Maintained and expanded the model as needed. It was already in place when I joined.

What subscribers received

  • Market Monitor: a quarterly report covering the latest quarter's results, the forecast and what changed, by region, platform, box format and resolution, plus vendor shares and a timeline of market drivers.
  • Interactive dashboard: market size and market share dashboards with pivot tables and filters by region, country, platform, pay or free TV, box type, resolution, DVR and connectivity, with definitions.
  • Analysis: published insights and reports on where the market is going. See Publications.

The same model also supported consulting work, such as a chip market review for a private equity firm.

What it shows

  • Building numbers that hold up when the companies being measured scrutinise them.
  • Reconciling bottom-up modelling with top-down reported data.
  • Running a recurring production cycle to a deadline, and explaining forecast changes clearly, for example revising the outlook when COVID-19 hit in 2020.
  • Turning a large model into something clients can use: reports, dashboards and commentary.

The service's data was for subscribers only, so no figures are shown here.