Samsung is expanding the streaming service it includes with its smart TVs, Samsung TV Plus, to its Galaxy smartphones.
Available online starting Wednesday at the Galaxy Store and Google Play Store, the Samsung TV Plus app will run on Galaxy Note20, Galaxy S20, Galaxy Note10 and Galaxy S10 series mobile devices. (It apparently won’t be compatible with other Android-based smartphones.)
Samsung TV Plus is an ad-supported, free-to-consumer streaming service with 135 channels. The Korean electronics giant, which is a leader in the North American smart TV market, includes its TV Plus app in Tizen, the operating software it uses to power its TVs.
Tizen is the most widely deployed connected TV OS in the world, controlling 11% of streaming devices globally, according to data released earlier this month by Strategy Analytics.
Also read: Samsung Controls 14% of Fragmented Global OTT Device Biz, Leads the World
This migration represents a bit of a reverse-course in the typical evolutionary path that OTT apps follow. Google’s Android TV and Apple’s tvOS, for example, are both rooted in their company’s respective mobile device applications, Android and iOS, for example.
Notably, Samsung was unsuccessful in its earlier efforts to transition Tizen to power its smartphones.
Also notable: Samsung cancelled its 2020 developers conference amid the ubiquitous COVID-19 concerns.
“Please be advised, the Samsung Developer Conference in 2020 has been cancelled. We are disappointed that we will not be hosting the event this year and getting the chance to interact directly with you,” Samsung announced Tuesday.
There will be no virtual iteration, which has led some in the tech press to speculate that the company has little in the way of new products to announce.
