Roku tops Amazon as advanced TV misses opportunities
Details
Joseph O'Halloran
| 23 July 2019

New research from analyst Hub has found that when it comes to a number of advanced TV features, the industry is suffering from a number of missed opportunities while online video is seeing strong CE brand awareness kick in.

Hub’s Evolution of the TV Set study — conducted among 2,517 US consumers in May and June 2019 — principally found that many consumers with 4K TV sets don’t know where to find 4K content, even though most subscribe to TV platforms that offer it and only about half of consumers with a 4K TV set have ever used it to watch 4K content.

The top-two reasons for not watching were that consumers don’t know where to find shows and films in 4K and they don’t believe they have access to 4K content at all. Yet Hub also observed this paradox: four-fifths of 4K TV owners subscribe to Netflix or Amazon Prime Video, two sources that offer, and publicise, their expansive 4K TV and movie offerings.
The research also found that smart TVs are not just for streaming video content. Streaming music was the top non-TV application of smart TVs with nearly two-fifths of smart TV owners using it to stream music.

In the battle for connected device dominance, Hub revealed that consumers are much more familiar with Roku than with Amazon Fire. Almost three-fifths (59%) of consumers say they know at least something about the Roku brand, and 26% say they know a lot. By contrast, fewer than half (43%) are familiar with Fire TV, with only 15% saying they know a lot.

“As smart TVs, connected TVs, connected devices, and TV voice-control devices proliferate, many new services and features have suddenly become available to TV set users”, said David Tice, co-author of the Evolution of the TV Set study. “But TV manufacturers and services have a long record of inadequately educating consumers on their offerings. TV brands and content distributors need to work together to increase consumer awareness, as these great new features won’t help sell TV sets or services – or command a premium – if people don’t understand them.”