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
Virtual multichannel video providers (vMVPDs) are now in 19% of U.S. broadband households--nearly double the saturation level as recently as 2019, according to Parks Associates data. Many house...
Apps will become the universal means for connecting interested parties, just based on nearly 1 million apps on the Apple and Facebook platforms. Consumers under 35 are increasingly ditching their brow...
Lest pay-TV providers start thinking that their hotshot over-the-top rivals have it all, consider this latest tidbit: OTT services are dealing with churn, too. Big-time. About 85% of U.S. broadband...
Nearly a quarter of consumers who subscribe to pay TV made changes to their subscriptions over the past year. But that news isn’t as bad as one might expect. According to Parks Associates, of those...
