While stocks continue to plummet, stores close down shop, retail chains post the worst sales in more than three decades, and an alarming amount of people declare bankruptcy, the mobile video market is flourishing.

 

Research firm In-Stat believes the mobile video industry will experience rapid growth rates over the next few years despite the state of the economy.

 

There are numerous ways to bring video content to mobile devices; some of these require mobile video-specific infrastructure, such as broadcast out-of-band video services and cellular in-band video services, the high-tech market research firm says. Others, like Internet access and digital terrestrial broadcast TV, utilize infrastructure in place for other video services.

 

According to Gerry Kaufhold, In-Stat (News - Alert) analyst, “In spite of the present economic turmoil, consumer interest in mobile video is growing, and service providers must build infrastructure to be in position when consumer demand recovers. Europe is the largest region for transmission revenue due to the number of countries that have launched, or plan to launch, mobile-specific out-of-band broadcast networks.”

 

“Mobile video headends will drive growth for encoders and transcoders to support an increasing number of video channels and display sizes. When the Mobile Internet hits its stride, we’ll see online videos being repurposed for mobile devices,” adds Kaufhold.

 

In-Stat research revealed that the U.S. is set to start deploying ATSC Mobile and Handheld (ATSC M&H) services during 2009, into 2010, and beyond.

 

Deployments of ISDB-T will begin in Brazil, which support a built-in mobile service called One Segment (One Seg).

 

In addition, DVB-H deployments will continue on a country-by-country basis. MediaFLO will continue to grow in U.S. markets, and may see some new markets developing.

 

In-Stat also found that mobile video infrastructure revenues will hit $291 million in 2012. Also, transmission network buildouts generate more revenues than mobile video headends.

 

The study, “Worldwide Mobile Video Infrastructure: The Buildout Continues,” discusses the worldwide market for mobile video equipment. It looks at the demand for mobile specific broadcast transmission equipment and mobile video headend equipment. The report also looks at the demand for transmission equipment by region while separating mobile video headends into encoders, IP encapsulators, multimedia gateways, and streaming servers. It provides five-year forecasts for transmission equipment, by region, and by high-power, medium-power, low-power, gap filler, and enhanced ATSC (ATSC M&H) sites. Worldwide five-year forecasts are also given for mobile video headend components, IRDs, encoders, IP encapsulators, multimedia gateways, and streaming servers.