Apple TV Overtakes Roku in Streaming Video Market: Report

The set-top box, once considered as a hobby device, is overtaking competitors in the rapidly growing streaming video market. The “old” Apple TV has doubled its market share of premium video viewing in a single quarter from 5% to 10%, overtaking Roku, according to a new analysis from Adobe Digital Index (via Fortune).

“Apple is sitting in the catbird seat because of its dominant position with access to consumers and a wealth of video data,” said Tamara Gaffney, principal analyst at ADI. “The challenge will be to see if it can monetize the strategy fast enough to get ahead of the movement away from linear TV toward digital viewing. Apple is clearly looking to play in the video-streaming market, and the growth of that market is a big indicator as to why.”

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Apple devices currently account for 62% of all authenticated pay-for-TV video views, the ADI report says, while at the same time TV Everywhere viewing increased 282% year-over-year. Interestingly, the TV Everywhere platform brings viewers back to the living room, taking away share from desktop computers. By the way, the living room is exactly what Apple’s next target is, as Tim Cook has said multiple times that the TV experience is stuck somewhere in the seventies.

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While the market share of desktop computers is falling – from 36% to 14% year-over-year – iOS’ grew from 43% to 47%. Android’s market share has remained flat.

Google’s Android and Chrome have grown at a much faster pace than Safari, at the expense of Firefox and Internet Explorer, in the list of most popular browsers for online video. Google is up 18%, while Safari is up 15% year-over-year.

This news arrives hot on the heels of reports claiming that the highly-anticipated Apple TV upgrade won’t be part of the WWDC announcement next Monday. Citing anonymous sources the New York Times reports that Apple has changed its mind suddenly. Buzzfeed, on the other hand, says this wasn’t a last minute decision.

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