With no new streaming video player in two and a half years, Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is losing ground in the market. Apple's set-top box, Apple TV, slipped to fourth place in U.S. sales of streaming media devices last year, research firm Parks Associates reported Thursday.
Roku continues to lead in streaming media device sales, accounting for 34% of units sold in 2014. Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) was second with 23%. Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN) overtook Apple for third place. Amazon grabbed 16% of the market, compared with 13% for Apple.
Together the top four brands accounted for 86% of all streaming media devices sold to U.S. broadband households in 2014, Parks said.
"The market consolidation around these four brands forces new entrants to develop more creative features and functionality to tap into the strong consumer demand for streaming content," Parks analyst Barbara Kraus said in a statement. "Devices with additional functionality such as the Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) Compute Stick may be a sign of things to come, where streaming is not the primary function but an extra feature to provide additional value."
From the article "Apple TV Falls Behind In Streaming Device Market" by Patrick Seitz.
Automated smart home systems are a growing trend among mainstream consumers; in fact, according to Parks Associates, 48 percent of U.S. broadband households intend to buy at least one smart home devic...
Almost unheard of as recently as five years ago, smart speakers are on their way to becoming as ubiquitous as the microwave. As of early 2019, a third of U.S. homes with high-speed internet access had...
For consumers, Amazon owning Eero could make it easier to set up and manage the wide range of wireless devices in their homes. “A number of companies have been trying to address a very real pain po...
According to a Parks Associates report, Roku was the leading video streaming device in the U.S. followed by Chromecast and Apple TV in 2014. "The research finds Roku is still the leading brand with...
