IHS Markit: media management market to grow 4.5% this year

The media management market grew by 6.4% in 2016 and is anticipated to grow another 4.5% in 2017 with global revenues to reach US$8.2 billion, according to IHS Markit.

According to the study, North America is the largest media management market, accounting for 35% of global revenue, followed by Asia Pacific and Western Europe. However, the fastest-growing markets are Asia Pacific and South and Central America.

Overall IHS Markit expects the media management market to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 5.9% from 2015 to 2021, when revenue will reach US$10.5 billion worldwide.

The research firm said that the market as a whole is shared between a variety of vendors with different business models and is “fragmented across all segments”.

“The industry has evolved to adapt to the tectonic shifts that are happening in the media landscape, with the key changes being the growing availability of time- and place-shifted content and a decrease in the viewing of linear content,” said IHS Markit.

“On average, linear viewership is shrinking, but it is still the core product of a pay-TV service. Over-the-top and multiscreen services may be dictating the trends in user experience and expectations, but pay TV remains the main source of growth for media management service provision.”

The research claims that that “the main story in the industry” is the continued shift from in-house media management to third-party services.

Some 63% of media management revenue is expected to be service based in 2017 – a trend that IHS Markit predicts will continue through to at least 2021 when it will rise to 66%.

“This change was enabled predominantly by virtualisation solutions, both in their technical capabilities and economics,” according to the report.