New Apple TV loses to Roku in U.S.

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apple tv and siri remote
The Apple TV had a surge of sales last year.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

The fourth generation Apple TV experienced the largest increase in unit sales last year among streaming media players but it hasn’t been good enough to supplant Roku as the top streamer in the U.S. 

Apple TV’s biggest weakness appears to be its price point. New research shows that smaller stick streamers made up half of last year’s sales and Apple’s competition reaped the rewards.


“Roku and Amazon benefit from multiple form factors – both offer boxes and sticks,” said Barbara Kraus, Director of Research at Parks and Associates which just released its latest research on the U.S. streaming market. “Sticks accounted for 50% of all unit sales in 2015. 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.”

Roku is dominating the current U.S. market while the battle for second is a tight three-way race. Amazon and Google command 22% of the market each, while Apple is close behind with 20%.

The new Apple TV’s share of sales in 2015 was 50% higher than it was in 2014 thanks to the new device and tvOS platform that brought third-party apps to the device to go with Siri integration and a new remote.

The four horsemen of the streaming wars could see some new competition soon. Rovi acquired TiVO recently and is expected to reveal their first streamer this year. The global media streaming player market is expected to hit 86 million devices globally by 2019 though, so there’s going to be plenty of money to go around.

Via: AppleInsider

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