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

They should repeat this study

[Dunbal]

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...

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.

Re: They should repeat this study

[TuballoyThunder]

Roku is much better than any of the smart tvs that I have come across. I did not even setup the smart functions on the tv I bought--I use a roku instead. I find the UI much easier to use on the roku and I trust Roku more than any of the tv manufacturers.

Re:They should repeat this study

[luis_a_espinal]

Don't the nearly ubiquitous Smart TVs pretty much kill the need for Roku for many users? Assuming that it's for Netflix and then Amazon Prime Video a distant second... (Amazon couldn't be sad if their firestick dies either since it's just a means to an end).

No, it doesn't. I own a Smart TV which isn't as smart as it claims to be. I love its large display capabilities, but the "smart" in it, it ain't that smart (same goes to most, if not all smart TVs.)

It has an interface that sucks, but you don't want to update its firmware, for it bricks from time to time. That's when I got me a Roku streaming stick (and later a Roku 2 with an Ethernet adapter.)

Both are convenient and when are on travel, we can take the streaming stick with us to plug it on a TV at a hotel (though good hotel now offer Netflix and Hulu as well.)

Even if Smart tv manufacturers were to get their shit together and truly deliver smart software in them, I'd rather decouple them. There is a point where embedding makes no sense, with integration being the more advantageous alternative for the consumer.

If a Smart TV firmware bricks or its wireless adapter go toast, what do you do? Buy a new one? In the meantime a portable streaming device that you can hook to the TV's hdmi port (and preferably with an Ethernet adapter) that costs you a double-figure? That sounds like a more reasonable alternative.

I'm not buying TVs for their smartness anymore, just its display capabilities.

I'm not sure what has happened with the latest family of Roku products, but I cannot complain with what I have right now.

Re:They should repeat this study

[Quirkz]

I see Smart TVs as being about the same as the combination printer/scanner/fax systems. It's wedging three separate technologies into one device, and in the process cheapening all of them. Also, when one goes down, they all go down, and then you get absurdities like not being able to fax because you're out of toner.

My typical streaming device lasts 3-6 years, and the technology is changing rapidly. My typical TV lasts a decade or more, and for the most part I'd rather not try to keep up with expensive features there, and just want a nice screen at a reasonable price. I've avoided smart TVs simply because I figure the streaming part is likely to fail or become obsolete long before the screen does, and I'd like to be able to replace that component independently. If non-smart TVs ever go extinct, I'd still be inclined to leave the TV disconnected, and continue using the streaming device of my choice.

Besides, most of my dumb TVs can't even do their own tuning and display interfaces right. I've got an RCA that insists on turning itself on every single day, via a timer feature that cannot be disabled. If they're that terrible about simple features, do you really want them putting their hands on proprietary streaming interfaces? I'd rather leave that to the experts.

Re:They should repeat this study

[ilsaloving]

That's because "Smart" TVs are crap. The landscape of video services is changing constantly, so if you buy a TV now, there's an excellent chance that one or more of the features will no longer function several years from now because the manufacturer can't arsed to put out updates once they got your money.

And that's ignores the several instances of TV manufacturers pulling shady stunts like sending audio or other personal data back to the manufacturer on a regular basis.

No... A TV should be nothing more than a device that displays pretty pictures and makes noises. Everything else belongs in an inexpensive and easily replaceable/updatable unit.

Re:They should repeat this study

[Darinbob]

I agree here. Roku is all about streaming. Many TV manufacturers treat the streaming like an afterthought, just another check-off box on the list of features.

But there are Roku smart TVs, where some major brands embed the Roku as the smarts. Which may be a good idea if you can't find a new dumb TV anymore.

Re:They should repeat this study

[tlhIngan]

I love its large display capabilities, but the "smart" in it, it ain't that smart (same goes to most, if not all smart TVs.)

The problem with smart TVs is software, and it's not going to change.

A Smart TV only came about because the control chips for TVs inherited the advances made by smartphones. My TV (a 55" Sharp Aquos, before HiSense) features a 166MHz ARM processor on it and actually runs an embedded Linux. Its sole purpose is to do the UI and other parts of the control aspect of the screen. It has the beginnings of "Smart" features though I've never bothered hooking it up to the network to try them. Back before the iPhone days, 166MHz processors were common for ARM, and decent enough.

These days, using a 165MHz processor for the control part makes no sense - it's not going to be significantly cheaper - the license fees for the low end ARMs may be cheaper, but the marginal cost to pretty much do a custom ASIC eats up any potential savings. Better to just use available off the shelf processors which include a fast ARM code of 1GHz or more off the shelf. Even if you only need a tiny fraction of it.

So what do you do with the spare processor power? You make it smart. But now your "smart" software is being written by people who don't really have a clue how to do UIs beyond what they normally do, and whose idea of a firmware update updates everything. It's like people who code in the Linux kernel all day are suddenly tasked with doing a UI and apps middleware layer - they're not going to do a great job because the skill set is so different.

Normally at this point you'd go "so buy a middleware layer and use that" (which is what LG did when they bought WebOS), and what Google does with Android TV, or Roku. But that's time and money as well and you have to learn how to use the middleware layer. So you just annoy the existing devs who think UI is easy.

Surprising

[Presence Eternal]

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.

Re:Surprising

[bobbied]

I own four, but use only one right now..

Roku is basically in the "it works" category for nearly all the service providers I know of and care to use. I've only had one fail, but it took a lighting hit that took the rest of my AV equipment to make it happen. That is why I believe they are top of the heap.

Re:Surprising

[MBGMorden]

They've established a brand by starting in the market early (most people do recognize the name Roku), and they're priced pretty competitively. The cheapest one is $30 and though it lacks a few features of the more expensive models it's still a perfectly functional device.

Granted, there's not much actual differentiation in function between the different manufacturer's here so I'd consider any company's lead being "fragile", but still - I don't see any reason why Roku wouldn't be doing well.

"Plug Every Hole" Indeed

[Kunedog]

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.

Ubquitous device

[manu0601]

What TFA does not say is how many households have no streaming device.

Oh little Roku how I love thee, and also my sister

[elrous0]

I love my little Roku 3. I wish it were legal to marry it, or my sister. Either one.

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:AirPlay alternative for Roku?

[h33t l4x0r]

Roku + Plex is about as good as it gets. I haven't tried Apple TV but I have some Chromecasts that lie around unused.

Can't say I'm surprised....

[Drakonblayde]

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.

Re:AirPlay alternative for Roku?

[Drakonblayde]

The Roku app has their equivalent of AirPlay (Play on Roku) where you can stream content stored on your device directly to the Roku

The SDK is simple, open-ish, powerful

[netsavior]

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