Offering survey data as to which devices North American consumers are using to access popular OTT services, TiVo’s latest quarterly Video Trends Report indicates that combined, Roku and Amazon Fire TV streaming boxes, dongles and sticks account for around 30% of streaming usage.
TiVo’s first-quarter survey of 4,367 adult consumers in the U.S. and Canada is obscured by methodology — the company counts “smart TVs” as a separate device category from Roku and Fire TV accessories. And since Roku powers many smart TVs sold in the U.S., the picture gets a little blurry.
Further complicating things, TiVo breaks down consumer groups between “pay TV subscribers” and “broadband-only subscribers.” But some insight can be gleaned nonetheless.
Notably, smart TVs are used by around 30% of North American consumers to access OTT video. Among smart TVS, Samsung’s Wizen is the top operating system, powering 50.1% of devices. Google’s Android TV ranks second in the smart TV OS category, powering 14.1% of sets, followed by Roku (13%), LG’s WebOS (2%).
Mobile devices powered by Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android software are used for 16.3% of streaming usage, TiVo said. Gaming consoles (12.8%) and Apple TV devices (11%) are also popular choices.
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Notably, Android TV doesn’t rank in the top five just yet. But that could change soon, with TiVo now marketing an Android TV-based OTT dongle, and Google set to release its own Android TV dongle, was well.
The usage data has relevance, given that WarnerMedia just launched its HBO Max streaming service without access to Roku and Fire TV. NBCUniversal’s Peacock is launching nationally July 15, and it hasn’t locked in device support for those operating systems, either.
