Parks Associates has announced new research showing Roku is still the most popular brand of streaming media players, accounting for 30% of the players purchased from the first quarter of 2015 to the first quarter of 2016. Amazon moved into a virtual tie with Google at 22% of sales. Along with Apple TV (20%), the four major players account for 94% of the streaming media players purchased, up from 86% in 2014.
While Apple TV remains in fourth place among the four major brands, it had the largest increase in unit sales year-over-year, primarily due to sales of the fourth generation model, which launched in the fourth quarter of 2015. Its share of sales in 2015 was 50% higher than its share in 2014.
Approximately one-third of Roku sales were sticks, and roughly three-quarters of Amazon sales were sticks. Apple and Roku were essentially tied for selling the most boxes, but Roku is expanding its base with the additional form factor, says Barbara Kraus, director of Research, Parks Associates.
The research group estimates that 86 million streaming media players will be sold globally in 2019. In 2014, 34% of U.S. broadband households that bought a streaming media device bought a Roku, 23% bought a Google Chromecast, 16% bought an Amazon Fire TV, and 13% bought an Apple TV.
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