Following global market trends: MENA and OTT World Summit

For interactive TV and digital content industry, November 2013 brought a whole bunch of events. During just one month, a series of specialised events took place in different parts of the world, from local В2В forums to continental exhibitions in regions on the threshold of assimilating innovative technologies. We have already published Infomir’s report on 2013 AfricaCast exhibition. And now a couple of words about two other events where the Ukrainian manufacturer participated, the TV Connect MENA in Dubai and the OTT World Summit in London.

The TV Connect Middle East & North Africa (TV Connect MENA) is the only regional event for TV industry. Thus, the industry forum became a communication link for major TV services providers with a focus on distribution technologies: IPTV, OTT, multi-screen and cloud systems. The main part of it was a conference program, where delegates discussed telecom business, popular and innovative technologies, expectations and forecasts of market players.

It is worth noting that nearly every presentation mentioned a conception disproving all estimates made 5–7 years ago about a close ‘death’ for television due to the Internet development and spread. Today, industry experts and TV market players agree that the Internet is not a threat for TV. Instead, it is one of its components, one more channel for TV distribution. According to data and reports by analytical companies, the total number of TV views is not falling. On the contrary, it is on the rise.

When the so called technology convergence started, analytics were sure that teenagers and young people will be left outside the TV audience. But they turned out to be wrong. For young people, new technologies meant new possibilities for signal receiving. From analogue solutions, they switched to digital technologies and the Internet.

State content regulation and low level of local TV production are among factors holding back the growth of IPTV services in the Emirates. A Google report confirms it, though indirectly: following the US, the Emirates are the second country in the world generating traffic on YouTube.com, the most popular video resource.

At the TV Connect MENA, the sector of IPTV STBs was represented by Infomir and booths of its major competitors, Dune and Arris/Motorola. Suppliers of transferring solutions, middleware and transcoding software developers also contributed to the exposition. But in spite of high growth rate of OTT technologies in the Emirates and lack of problems with financing, Infomir does not consider the regional market to be strong. While the industry dynamics here is actually ahead of Africa for two years at least, content restrictions remain a huge limiting factor. However, the exhibition resulted in contacts with potential clients from Northern Africa, the Emirates, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Requests of visitors representing Africa confirmed their interest in hybrid solutions we witnessed during 2013 AfricaCast. Besides, Infomir’s team received inquiries from our European partners who are interested in introducing additional OTT services in the Emirates and specifically in Dubai.

The ОТТ World Summit in London turned out to be very close to the MENA’s spirit. The main focus was on conferences, seminars, exchanging opinions and experiences. During the four days of the forum, participants discussed major industry trends, including the future of multiplatform entertainment industry, cloud technologies development, unique content production, social TV promotion, MAM platforms deployment, transcoding for OTT ecosystem. The exhibition part was represented mainly by software developers.

While activities at Infomir’s booth included more meetings with existing clients and partners than new connections, our participation in the ОТТ World Summit can be considered successful. The image-forming, status exhibition confirmed the company’s presence in numerous countries and regions of the world.

Summing it all up, we are pleased to state that every exhibition and every forum brings more familiar faces visiting Infomir’s booth and fewer new connections for us. Apparently, now the market of up-to-date TV solutions knows us well. So next year, Infomir will be focusing its exhibition activities on events where we can meet a lot of new people—our future clients and partners. Let’s shape the future TV together!