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.
Amazon also offers transactional (both purchase and rental) and subscription streaming through Amazon Prime Video, continuing to forge partnerships with cablers such as Cox, which added the service to...
Despite 2016 seeing virtual reality break into the mainstream market, headset manufacturers such as Sony, Oculus and HTC still have a lot of work to do in order to educate the masses, according to a n...
The nation’s largest retailer continues to lead in DVD and Blu-ray Disc sales, devoting significant retail space to the category, including point-of-purchase displays and ubiquitous dump bins. “We...
While home speakers, as well as the use of AI assistants on smartphones and tablets, figure centrally into the voice shopping market, there is also great potential in the automobile market. A study by...
