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.
Comcast is pushing ahead on a plan to take Xfinity Home, its home security and automation platform, to the next level in part by broadening a curated mix of devices that work with the platform while a...
Parks reported that 80 percent of U.S. smartphone and tablet users who own at least one smart home device have downloaded mobile apps for these devices, but how is that population of users engaging wi...
Looking at the OTT market, Parks says that 60 percent of OTT video services require a subscription, and 64 percent of broadband-enabled U.S. households subscribe to an OTT video service (up from 59 pe...
Luring and keeping customers is becoming harder as the online streaming market gets more crowded and subscribers, freed from cable television's contract model, can cancel service with a click of the m...
