Chromecast surpasses Apple TV in the video streaming market

The popularity of Google’s Chromecast stick
shows no indication of declining , and as
the number of countries the device
is available in continues to grow, more and
more consumers are starting to take notice
of what this little device is capable of. So
many in fact, that a new report by The
Wall Street Journal indicates that the
Chromecast has surpassed Apple TV all
together in video streaming, to become the
second most popular streaming device in
the United States.
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Market research company Parks
Associates was responsible for the actual
survey, which covered a span of 10,000
homes in the United States. Each home in
the survey had a broadband internet
connection, with the survey discovering
that 10% bought a streaming stick
between January and October of 2014.
Chromecast came in at second place with
20% of streaming devices sold, with Roku
taking the number one slot at 29%. When
compared to the same survey taken for the
first 10 months of 2013, it’s clear to see
that Google’s device has eaten some market
share, as Roku at that time came in first at
46% and Apple TV second with 26%.
The 2014 survey also shows that the
Amazon Fire TV stick is already off to a
respectable start, a month after its debut,
coming in fourth place with 10%.
Price points would appear to be a
determining factor here, as the
Chromecast, Roku Stick, and Amazon Fire
stick all come in at under $50, which is
half the cost of Apple TV. As director of
research Barbara Kraus points out,
“Amazon’s Fire TV streaming stick leaves
Apple as the only top player without a
stick product in the streaming media
device category”, with Apple instead
choosing to rely on their TV top box set for
streaming services.
In 2014, Google and Amazon have also
released TV top box sets (Amazon Fire TV
and Google’s Nexus Player ) that both have
optional game controllers.
With the success of Roku, Google, and
Amazon stream sticks (Microsoft also
recently introduced their own streaming
adapter in September), might it be a signal
to Apple to manufacture one of its own? As
the popularity of streaming devices grows,
it might not be such a bad idea. Barbera
went on to state that over a quarter of US
homes will have a streaming device by
2015, with over 50 million homes
projected to have one by 2017.