Valour Consultancy: IFE evolving into holistic digital services platform
Passenger enjoying IFE via a personal electronic device
Valour Consultancy released the fifth edition of its “The Future of In-Flight Entertainment” report for 2024, providing a deeper look at the key developments in the IFE market. The report examines the trends in this market and provides forecasts out to 2033.
The report finds that IFE is no longer just about TV and movies; entertaining the passenger remains important but IFE is “evolving into a holistic digital services platform.”
According to the 2024 report from Valour Consultancy, the push for airlines to digitalize onboard services will drive the growth of wireless IFE (W-IFE) services to more than 17,000 equipped aircraft by the end of 2033, compared to the 10,000 in market today.
As IFE vendors grapple with the growing ubiquity of onboard connectivity, the report notes that inflight entertainment is moving away from traditional movie and TV content toward a more holistic digital platform. Such holistic IFE platforms allow airlines to improve digital offerings for their passengers while simultaneously enabling cost savings, increasing brand loyalty and generating ancillary revenues for the carrier.
The report also states that an increasing number of low-cost carriers (LCCs) are looking to wireless IFE to support their first steps on a path towards onboard digitalization, making this an important point of focus for vendors.
“Many LCCs and regional airlines are in the early stages of their digital development and may find that going direct to a high-bandwidth connectivity solution does not yet make sense as a business model,” said report author, David Whelan.
The report says many leading IFC service providers are installing W-IFE as a supporting platform alongside connectivity and that the growing dominance of Starlink presents a “juncture” in the W-IFE market because it does not offer a digital platform alongside its IFC services.
This means that airlines adopting Starlink’s IFC are retaining other providers for their W-IFE solutions.
“It’s often assumed that because Starlink offers pure connectivity without any digital services packaged in that airlines will not source any of these services from elsewhere. However, our discussions with airlines suggest that many still value offering digital services onboard,” said Whelan.
The report suggests that vendors in the market must create digital services which connectivity alone cannot provide, naming AirFi, Bluebox Aviation Systems, Immfly and Inflight Dublin as some of the companies that are well placed to step into this gap in the market. These include interactive inflight maps, onboard retail services and more.
The seatback IFE market continues to be a mainstay on wide-body aircraft. According to the report, more than 7,000 aircraft are equipped with seatback systems today, with this figure expected to rise to more than 10,000 by 2033, driven largely by new wide-body deliveries.
In 2023, 90 percent of the global wide-body fleet featured seatback IFE, with an attach rate of 93 percent on new deliveries. Despite this strong demand, the market remains firmly dominated by three main manufacturers, led by Panasonic Avionics. The report cites AERQ’s recent closure as an example of the high barriers to entry in a market among the more established players.
The 2024 report was developed with input from more than 30 companies across the value chain: seatback IFE system vendors, wireless IFE vendors, digital service specialists, content service providers, connectivity service providers and airlines. The study offers detailed insights into the market dynamics and the report comprises 150 pages of comprehensive analysis of the IFE market.
