A new report assessing the US digital media streamer market from independent research firm Strategy Analytics has declared the Amazon Fire TV as the best selling media streamer during the first quarter of this year. The report says the Apple TV, the Chromecast, Roku devices, and Fire TV devices account for over 90% of the standalone digital media streamer market. Fire TV devices earned the top spot by taking a 30% share of all streaming device shipments between January 1st and March 31st. The report estimates that 4.5 million Fire TV devices have been sold since Amazon first released the Fire TV a little over one year ago.
SourceStrategy Analytics
ViaEngadget
@AFTVnews
AFTVnews
Seems like console sales are slumping. Maybe people are finding android games satisfying? Despite this, dedicated streamers are only capturing 18% of households. Since purchasing two TiVo Roamio/OTAs and a mini, my family (which owns a Chromecast, six Rokus, and four Fire TV devices) has really not used anything else. We also own three CM DVR+s and are looking forward to Linear OTT. We are likely going to demo Sling TV as well. I have been holding off on this because I am not sure which promo I want to leverage.
Is this a sea change or a statistical anomaly? Are you in transition? I have noticed that BDs are becoming very inexpensive and I have been working on my library. A lot of these include digital access (Vudu/UV).
Personally, as a cord cutter, I am pretty delighted at the options. I am not surprised at Amazon’t success, but I am surprised at the failure of OTT to capture more market share.
Android has nothing to do with the relatively slow ramp up of the new generation consoles.
It has everything to do with how good and popular the 360 and PS3 still are.
The new boxes simply aren’t $200 better than the older ones and they don’t have any backwards compatibility. Plus there are so many of the older boxes in place that developers would have to be crazy not to support them so most of the top franchises are doing simultaneous releases for both generations.
Most gamers are simply in no rush to upgrade.
And neither MS nor Sony are in any rush to kill the billion dollar businesses that are 360 and PS3. (Which, btw, are pretty solid streaming boxes in their own right.) They’re both hovering near the 100 million mark so there’s tons of money still to be made there. They may not have much hacker/enthusiast appeal these days but they’re still selling by the tens of millions.
Apple TV, Android boxes, and consoles are all separate markets. Very little overlap between them.
And FireTV is evolving into a new one (especially the stick) separate from the Android boxes. I’d suggest taking a close look at the ECHO to see where Amazon’s headed. It ain’t generic Android apps.
You really have to take this with a grain of salt. The last Apple TV model is over three years old, and it stll sells very well, but the Fire TV is barely a year old. For anyone to really compare the two you would have to take first year sales of both devices and the Fire TV is nowhere near selling waht the Apple TV 3 sold in its first year. Also, this model of the Fire TV surely will not sell as maany units as the Apple TV has over its lifespan. Just because sales of a device has a great quarter means nothing. Samsung has had great sells in certain yearly quarters, but still cannot touch sales of the iphone in overall sales. Quarterly sales mean nothing. I have a feeling in another three years will be having the same conversation, but it will be about a one year old Android device outselling a three year old Aplle TV 4 in a three months span. What the article won’t say is that the Apple TV 4 has sold 40-50 million units while the Android device has only sold a few million. Comparing sales of the Fire TV and the Apple TV 3 is apples to oranges and the Apple TV 3 is the clear winner in terms of overall sales regardless if another device sales a few more units in the span of three months. Like I said before, like Apple or not, nobody is competing with Apple, Android is competing with Android in terms of who is gonna have the number two and three devices. Apple is number one and everyone ele is trying to be number two. It almost doesn’t seem fair, but Apple has the number one spot and someone needs to step up and actually challenge them. I think the real problem is that there re too mny Android devices to chose from for a single Android device to ever challenge Apple. Think about it, thre are at least 150 android boxes/sticks on the market, but there is one Apple TV, so people can either buy the Apple product which is from a proven company, or they can spend a day trying to figure out which android device is best for them. That is the biggest reason why Apple sales more phones tablets and set top boxes that any single Android device, cause android is by proxy competing with other Android devices..
I don’t care about comparisons to apple tv but it’s nice and encouraging that the fire tv is doing well and outselling roku. That was the only other streamer I was considering but fire tv won out do to being able to run kodi.
I just hope amazon continues to improve fire tv.
I don’t see the facsination with Roku, but it is a great set top box, but to me its boring compared to the Apple TV and Android boxes. The Apple TV is quite boring as well compared to any Android box. I am sure Amazon will improve the Fire TV, but its never gonna outsell the Apple TV or Roku in overall sales. I think for the Fire TV to stay relevant they need to upgrade to a newer version of Android. Its gonna get harder and harder for the Fire TV to compete with other Android boxes/sticks when the Fire TV is still running Andrid 4.2.2 and other devics are running 4.4+. Android 42.2 Jellybean has been experiencing compatibility issues with apps and its just going to keep getting worse, so if Amazon doesn’t upgrade the Fire TV soon it is gonna die a slow death. Android 4.4-5.1 is where its at, not Android 4.2.2.