The company is still “number one,” said Elizabeth Parks, president of market research firm Parks Associates in Dallas. But it’s a shaky number one. Parks estimates that iRobot had nearly two-thirds of the robot vacuum market in 2018, but now holds only a 48 percent share. Meanwhile, rival robot makers like SharkNinja, Roborock, Eufy, and Ecovacs have been steadily chipping away.
One possible reason, according to Parks, is concern about data privacy. More advanced versions of the Roomba and other robots use visual sensors to generate detailed maps of the user’s home. This information is shared with the manufacturers to develop more advanced products, but it could also potentially be used to monitor users.
From the article, "IRobot faces a murky future amid rising Roomba competitors" by Hiawatha Bray
Pay-TV operators are seeing a "slow erosion of the core business," analyst Brett Sappington at Parks Associates said. "After years of attempts to be more than just a 'dumb pipe,' pay-TV operators h...
Wireless data usage is growing steadily from 2015 to 2016 as consumers shift data-heavy activities from desktop to mobile. According to Parks Associates’ latest survey data, average monthly wireless d...
The public is awakening to this new threat of big data as “Big Brother” while acknowledging all its potential benefits. We do not need many of the idiocies promoted for profit in the Internet of Thing...
Beyond that, AT&T also gets revenue by licensing those movies and TV series to other pay-TV providers and subscription Net TV services such as Netflix. "Video and entertainment will remain the key dri...
