Roku Is the Top Streaming Device In the US and Still Growing, Report Finds (techcrunch.com)

Roku is the top streaming media player device in the U.S., and its growth is only increasing. According to the latest industry report from market intelligence firm Parks Associates, 37 percent of streaming devices in U.S. households are Roku devices, as of the first quarter of this year. That's up from 30 percent in the same quarter last year, the report notes. TechCrunch reports: The growth is coming at the expense of Roku's top competitors, like Apple and Google, with only Amazon's Fire TV able to increase its install base during the same timeframe. Fire TV devices are in 24 percent of U.S. households, as of Q1 2017, up from 16 percent last year. That climb allowed Amazon to snag the second position from Google's Chromecast, which has an 18 percent share. Lagging behind, Apple TV's market share fell to 15 percent -- a drop that Parks Associates Senior Analyst Glenn Hower attributes to Apple TV's price point. Roku last fall overhauled its line of streaming players with the intention of plugging every hole in the market. That strategy is seemingly paying off. There's now a Roku device to meet any consumer's needs -- whether that's an entry-level, portable and affordable "stick," to rival the Fire TV Stick or the Chromecast dongle, or a high-end player with 4K and HDR support, lots of ports, voice search remote, and other premium bells and whistles.

Comments

Re:AirPlay alternative for Roku?

[neovoxx]

While I'm not familiar with airplay, Plex makes for a great and free media server/streamer that has apps on just about every ecosystem including Roku.

Re:They should repeat this study

[MBGMorden]

Actually Roku has made decent progress there too - my "smart TV" in my bedroom is a Roku TV, as are a decent number of the ones I've seen in stores. The interface actually isn't bad. It's just the regular Roku setup and the other inputs are just selections like the apps. All the TV settings are just integrated into the Roku settings screens.

Also, FWIW, my downstairs TV is a standard "dumb" TV, and I'm using a Roku stick there too. I used an Amazon Fire TV for quite a while but I had to keep restoring the firmware to default and after a while it wouldn't even work correctly then. The Roku has been much less problematic for me.

Never used a Chromecast and the last Apple TV I owned was the first gen one so I don't really have opinions on them.