Google continues to make progress in its quest to control the global connected living room, announcing a 36% year-over-year surge in device deployment for its Google TV and Android TV operating systems at CES last week.
Google now claims 150 million global active devices for its TVOS vs. 110 million at the beginning of 2022.
To be clear, Google isn't talking about "active users," for which Roku, which touts leadership of the North American CTV market, announced a surpassed count of 70 million at CES.
But as attention turns to the more wide-open European connected TV market, it's hard to ignore Google's quick infiltration into a business it only seemed to become serious about within the last several years.
Notably, TCL — the Hong Kong-headquartered electronics company that brought Roku to U.S. hegemony with inexpensive smart TVs that undercut Korean incumbents — said at CES that it is now the largest manufacturer of TV's powered by Google TV.
Control of the living room video operating system is vital, with connected TV advertising edging toward the $20 billion mark this year in the U.S. alone.
Beyond that, there are prizes ranging from data collection to proliferation of broader device ecosystems, such as home automation gadgets.
Certainly, Roku itself factored in all of these considerations when it announced the launch of its own branded TV line at CES. ■
