According to a study conducted by a consumer market research company, Amazon has climbed from the last place to first place in the video streaming industry in only six short years, according to the results of the poll.
A new report by Parks Associates, which conducts an annual study of the smart TV and streaming box industry, showed that Amazon, which had a 12 percent share of the streaming video market in 2015, increased its share to a 36 percent stake during the first quarter of this year.
Amazon is tied for first place with Roku, which has a 36 percent share of the market. Apple (12 percent), Chromecast (eight percent), and all other players are in second place (six percent).
While Amazon’s fortunes have improved since 2015, the fortunes of Google’s Chromecast have deteriorated after reaching a high point of 21 percent in that year.
Chromecast’s position, on the other hand, may alter. “Our findings were based on the results of the first quarter survey,” said Parks analyst Paul Erickson.
“Due to the fact that the new Chromecast for TV won’t be released until the end of the year, it is still too early to tell how it will affect the Google user base. It’s possible that we won’t see the effect for a quarter or two “He spoke with TechNewsWorld about his experiences.
“The data we’re seeing is heavily skewed toward the United States, which is a source of Amazon’s strength. If we were looking at Europe or another part of the world, the results could be different “He issued a word of warning.
He went on to say that Amazon’s strong marketing has played a role in the company’s ascent to the top of the streaming rankings.
“And they are the owners and operators of one of the biggest e-commerce websites in the world. It provides a significant platform for them to advertise their products “he said.
‘They’re not only trying to increase their Prime membership base with these gadgets,’ he said. a large number of ordinary customers who buy on Amazon and find the gadgets provided at a reduced price, or they see it packaged with something they desire at a discounted price, are attracted to them.
Three Important Factors in Achieving Success
Amazon’s success in the streaming market, according to IDC analyst Adam Wright, can be attributed to three factors: its content and services strategy, its hardware strategy, and its leveraging of its wider smart home ecosystem and brand, among others.
As he explained to TechNewsWorld, “Amazon has done an excellent job in building out a user-friendly streaming platform that delivers a wide range of channels and content — to the point where any previously significant competitive advantage or difference between Amazon and competitors like to say Roku has been significantly whittled down.”
In addition, he noted, “Amazon has built out an attractive portfolio of streaming content, including both original and third-party content through Prime Video,” and the company has partnered with “the right streaming platforms,” including HBO and Paramount and “a plethora of others,” to provide “content that consumers are interested in.”
However, he said, Amazon’s success extends beyond the Fire TV streaming platform and streaming content. When it comes to hardware development, Amazon has done an outstanding job. Its products are continually being upgraded with new features, including things like 4K capability, HDR, and Dolby Atmos for improved image and sound quality.
Furthermore, he continued, the company has been extraordinarily aggressive in its pricing strategy, to the point where we see frequent and significant discounts on Amazon Fire TV streaming players, as well as a great deal of bundling of these streaming sticks and streaming boxes with other smart home devices, which helps to drive sales and expand their userbase.
Weakness in the Competition
According to Wright, in addition, Amazon has built a very broad and robust ecosystem of smart home devices — spanning a variety of categories such as intelligent speakers, intelligent displays, intelligent plugs, intelligent appliances, intelligent security solutions, intelligent lights, and many more — that has generated spillover effects and is helping drive sales of Amazon’s streaming players.
The tight integration of Amazon’s digital assistant, Alexa, with its streaming devices is also contributing to the success of the company’s products.
According to Wright, “being able to use voice commands to manage the television functionality or search for content, or even to bring up a live feed of a video doorbell or adjust a light somewhere in the house, is a huge attraction for many customers.”
Over the past six years, Amazon has gained a significant amount of market share at the cost of its rivals.
“Apple has never placed a strong focus on television, in any form. They’ve merely put up a semblance of an attempt “Jim Nail, a principal analyst with Forrester Research, expressed his views on the subject.
“And the TV industry isn’t large enough for Google to be concerned about it that much,” he told TechNewsWorld in an interview.
Erickson went on to say that Apple is very focused on its own ecosystem of products. “It reflects it in the pricing of its products,” he added. The fact that they are pricing their gadgets at $149 and above while the vast bulk of the volume in the market is now $50 or less indicates that they are not competing with Main Street devices.
Wright stated that Apple’s market share has suffered substantially as a result of the company’s late entry into the smart home competition and the fact that it does not have as strong an ecosystem to use as Amazon in order to drive sales of devices and generate ecosystem spillover effects.
“When it comes to hardware, Google has never provided a wide variety of options or frequent upgrades, with the introduction of its new Chromecast with Google TV serving as the most recent example of rejuvenation,” he said.
New Prospects for Development
Other rivals, such as Roku, on the other hand, are always searching for new methods to expand their businesses.
“Licensing accounts for a significant portion of the revenue generated by streaming device manufacturers these days,” said Ross Rubin, senior analyst at Reticle Research, a consumer technology consulting company based in New York City.
“They’re the TV operating systems that power a number of different brands,” he said to TechNewsWorld. “Amazon has done a small amount of effort there, but not nearly as much as Roku,” says the expert.
“Roku has also expanded into the production of home theater equipment, such as soundbars, with Roku software embedded in them, as well as the distribution of its own content, such as the Roku Channel and the recent acquisition of the library of the short-lived short-form video streaming service Quibi,” according to the company.
Roku Streambar is a streaming media player for the Roku streaming media player.
Gaming may potentially prove to be a lucrative market for streaming device manufacturers.
“All of these people have dabbled with video games,” Rubin remarked of his colleagues. Because streaming game service providers like as Microsoft, Amazon, and Nvidia aim to extend to television, in many instances the games that they are streaming were initially built for a TV-like interface, there may be some potential for development in this area.
If there’s one cloud looming over the heads of streaming device manufacturers, it might be the smart television.
Smart TVs are becoming more popular, according to Wright, and this is one of the most significant elements that will have an increasing effect over the next three to five years.”
He went on to say that “currently, our studies show that customers are still purchasing streaming sticks at the same time they purchase a smart TV, even if a smart TV is capable of streaming video.” “The reason for this is that the capabilities of smart TVs have not yet caught up with those of streaming players,” says the author.
“Smart TV manufacturers, on the other hand, are catching up fast,” he said, “and I believe that streaming players will face some tough competition from smart TVs in the future years.”
