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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.
I'm sure there's a few months' lag in compiling the data and then processing it. Things have happened since Q1 2017 that make Roku less than useless for many users. I expect this growth spurt to be rather short lived. Before you pile your life savings into the IPO...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Rokus are fine, and it's great they are provider agnostic, but how is this possible? They compete directly with the primary methods people use to research and buy these devices, and I've not observed any exciting capability or pricing to them. I own three, but that's simply because they're not google, apple, or amazon.
For the Roku? No time soon....
Other uses of impeachment are in the same boat...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Roku doesn't have a competitive content business themselves (even though they want to), which means that (so far) it's in their best interest to work hard to make sure their platform works with everyone.
What TFA does not say is how many households have no streaming device.
One of the things I like most about having a (3rd gen) Apple TV is AirPlay. But one of the things I don't like about the device is having to use iTunes to stream my ripped movies and TV shows to it.
Does Roku have a similar (and solid) feature that works with various computers, tablets, etc.?
#DeleteChrome
I used to love Fire TV and use it almost exclusively but the changes they made to the UI, (Homepage and search category's.) are really terrible so I may look to moving to Roku player. (Even the voice search is fubar after 'Alexa' updates.) Basically after recent changes Fire TV is now constantly trying to sell u content even if you try to search in free Amazon Prime only content. (They have actually made it difficult to search for your free Prime media and your purchased library only. The changes to the homepage and search categories are really terrible so I may look to moving to Roku as well.
I love my little Roku 3. I wish it were legal to marry it, or my sister. Either one.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
My parents are now in their 80s, and they used half a dozen different DVRs (including three different models from Comcast that were just dreadful) before I finally gave-up and bought them a TiVo. They actually used it unlike the others.
I connected an old Mac Mini to their TV, and they never used it even though I had it sync to my collection of hundreds of movies and TV shows. Same with Chromecast, their Samsung "smart" TV, Amazon Fire, and Apple TV. I gave them my old Roku, and they love it. They use it nearly every day.
Aside: I'm in my mid-fifties and so are most of my friends. In my opinion, they're overwhelmed by choices of what to watch, and Netflix's recent change to hide real ratings has really made them angry. I recently heard that The Expanse was going to be available to watch on Netflix so I asked my coworkers and friends, and not a one of them still has Netflix. They've really hurt themselves with their rating fiasco.
Roku support is utterly terrible.
NVidia shield TV is the way to go. NVidia somehow manage to deliver enterprise grade support to consumers including things like RMA forward replacements.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
I'm up to three of them in the house now, and I wouldn't be surprised if another 2 or 3 got added in the next couple of years as the kids get older and want their own TV's in their rooms.
For my family, it aggregates the platforms we use to consume media (Plex for local, Netflix and Amazon Prime for non-local) into a single device that's simple to use and just works.
And after I figured out how much data they were sending back and Pi-Holed their telemetry domains, all was right with the world.
and have to register the "hardware" before you can use it? That's why I never got one...
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Would you like me to clap like a seal?
I have played with the SDK which is simple and straightforward, in a few hours I wrote a "channel" that streams menus and content from my own server. My 3 year-old can use the menus. .
The roku also accepts rest calls for pretty much all the remote control functions, and you can add "launch parameters" to your custom channels, effectively allowing you to add arbitrary rest calls.
So basically I have a local picture menu that you can run from a browser to launch movies on any of my TVs, using fully supported and easy to understand roku APIs.
This makes it basically the only viable choice for my household
Maybe because Murdoch's Sky have a stake in Roku and use a re-branded Roku for their NowTV box they sell. But they haven't yet launched the Roku 4 in the UK and don't really push their boxes.
So if you want 4K look elsewhere....
Firesticks and Chromecasts seem a lot more common.
Really? My wife got ours set up in just a few minutes. I think we spent more time trying to remember our Netflix password than doing any other part of the setup. It's basically:
1) plug connectors to TV
2) connect Roku to wifi (or physical cable)
3) enter account details into the channels (like Netflix, Amazon) that you subscribe to.
I don't remember there being anything else to it.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
I'm surprised at the number of AC comments posting venomous bile about a mere device, but the inaccuracy of this post is laughable. I don't even know what "three-button remote" you're objecting to, but my Roku remote has something like a dozen buttons, covering all the normal features you'd expect. It's a far sight more intuitive than the PS3 controller is for streaming, for sure.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
For some oddball reason, my Spectrum-Warner remote, which did everything else, didn't want to switch to HDMI 2. And, since I got my Roku soon after a move, I had a hellova time finding the original TV remote, which did work.
The Roku itself seemed straightforward, but maybe a Joe Sixpack or Aunt Tilly would disagree.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
I bought a Roku Ultra to be able to watch both Amazon and Google content on one device. Even though it was months after release, the apps still had audio sync issues making the services unwatchable. The forums were filled with complaints and I posted logs and questions which were ignored. Literally the only reply I ever received from a Roku forum moderator was a complaint that my post was off topic for the thread (I was posting in an active thread as most others were ignored). Ditched Roku that day and would never buy such a poor quality product from an unresponsive tech company like Roku again.
"There's now a Roku device to meet any consumer's needs."
Oh really? There's a Roku that can run Kodi and other Android applications? That's great! And it supports casting from a phone as well? Perfect! I've been waiting for Roku to catchup. Even better is that it's an open-source operating system.
Oh. Wait. Roku is still proprietary garbage, that's right. What a terrible article.
I bet most people don't have a clue what you're talking about. YouTube shenanigans? What? I definitely don't consume most of my content from YouTube, and generally ignore anything that happens there.
Hmm, I plug it into HDMI port, plug it into power, and then... it worked.
Yes, you put in a credit card number. This is for on demand purchases only, just remember to never use it. If you're paranoid then use a pre-paid $10 card then have it expire.
For Apple TV, don't you need to have an Apple account? I thought it was heavilly iTunes based?
Mine did. But it may have been optional, I don't remember now. I just entered the CC number thinking I might want a pay per view movie someday, but so far I haven't bought anything.