Pace Micro Technology Plc, the Shipley, UK based set-top box manufacturer has signed two multi-million dollar deals in Mexico and Italy. In both cases, the deals are extended contracts with broadcasters who we launched into the market, said marketing director Andrew Wallace. He claimed they both agreed an exclusive supply from Pace because no one else was capable of producing it. Pace will supply Mexican digital broadcaster Corporation Novavision, locally known as Innova, with 120,000 more digital integrated receiver decoders between now and the end of the year. Pace has already provided 135,000 boxes to Innova, the larger of only two broadcast services in the country with 60% of existing subscribers. But Wallace refused to disclose the dollar amount of the deals. Italy’s Tele+, part of French pay TV giant Canal Plus, has agreed to buy 60,000 boxes from Pace. Wallace said Pace was the main set-top box supplier to Tele+ when it was independent broadcaster Telepiu. Tele+ currently has 290,000 digital satellite subscribers. After announcing in March that it was cutting 15% of its workforce after recording losses of 12.3m pounds (CI No 3,339), Pace has signed deals with British Sky Broadcasting, British Digital Broadcasting and Web TV, the Microsoft Corp subsidiary, in UK trials.
