Chinese broadcast market on the rise

A new syndicated market research report, Broadcast Equipment China 2008, illustrates the dynamic growth in demand being experienced in China for professional video equipment.

This was the first truly comprehensive equipment benchmarking and tracking survey, focused on growth in the top ten products, complete with brand shares and monetary evaluations, in China, on this scale.

Enhanced, in part, by the spending in the build-up to and aftermath of the Beijing Olympic Games and a generally surging economy in recent years, China's broadcast and professional segment is booming.

Furthermore, the sales environment is widening as the sector undergoes sweeping modernisation. The report underscores that this boom is expanding beyond the domain of China Central Television. Where the market was only a broadcast one previously, dominated by China Central Television, it is now developing production and post-production facilities and companies, especially in big cities such as Shanghai, Hong Kong and Beijing.

That is reflected in the monetary structure of the market in which 4.2% of respondents reported annual equipment budgets in excess of US $1 million and 28%, budgets of between $100,000 and $499,000. Although 47.6% reported that their budgets would remain the same in 2009, 44.2% reported that they expected them to grow.

Of those anticipating growth, 27.4% expected to see it grow by between 11 and 20% and another 15.1% expected to see growth of between 21 and 30%. In all, the aggregated and then averaged growth rate is seen as higher than most of the Western countries.

The report also looks at major technology trends that are shaping the Chinese broadcast market. Some of the preliminary results indicate that 41.6% of the industry is already all-digital while another 47.6% is apparently on the way to adopting the all-digital path.

Of those who reported being HDTV capable, 52.3% stated that their HD was 1080i compliant. 48.2% reported that they were 1080p compliant and 55% reported that they utilise MPEG-2 type compression. 33.3% reported that they store between three and seven days of video material. 48.2% reported that their use of RAID was 100%. 62% of the respondents expect to be using hard disc drives for storage five years from now.

For their computing, 70.4% reported utilising one version or another of the Windows operating system. By contrast, Apple's Mac represented only 11.8% of the computers in use in China, much lower compared with the West. 31.2% report recording in mostly tape with some disc, indicating that a lot of the Chinese market has yet to transition away from tape to newer media.

In all, 412 broadcasters and other video professionals in China responded to the fielded survey. Three major segments were studied; broadcast & cable networks and stations, production/post-production and mobile/OB and institutional (comprising corporate in-house, education, government agencies and medical).

Douglas I. Sheer is CEO and chief analyst of DIS and can be reached at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it .

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