Chromecast and Roku sold an estimated 3.8M units each in 2013 in the US, compared to 2M Apple TVs
Roku and Chromecast go head-to-head in streaming race, Apple TV falling behind — Roku and Chromecast were the two most successful streaming devices sold in the U.S. in 2013 …
Context & Ripple Effects
The numbers land as a direct rebuttal of Apple's earlier trajectory: back in December 2011 the Apple TV was predicted to sell 4 million units and grab 32% market share in 2011, yet Parks Associates' estimate has it shipping just 2M US units in 2013 while Roku and Chromecast tied at 3.8M each.
It also vindicates a bet Roku has made since its chief executive argued in 2010 that sales doubled when Apple TV launched — that every big-name entrant legitimizes the category rather than crushing it. Chromecast's arrival proved the thesis again: Google's entry grew the pie, and Roku was positioned with pay TV providers already standardizing on its box after raising $45M from News Corp and BSkyB in 2012.
First-order effects
- Apple TV enters the second half of 2014 with a confirmed 2-to-1 US unit deficit against both Roku and Chromecast, undercutting the premium-hobby-device framing that let it ignore price competition.
- Roku heads into an unconfirmed but reported IPO window holding a co-lead in unit share, having just dropped its Streaming Stick to $50 in March 2014 to defend that position.
Second-order effects
- The $50 stick price point Roku set in March forces Google, Apple, and any new entrant to compete on sub-$100 hardware economics, squeezing margin out of the category and shifting value toward software and channel revenue per device.
- Pay TV providers that adopted Roku as their streaming endpoint gain leverage: with volume leadership split between two cheap platforms, operators can negotiate rather than default to a single premium box.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the US streaming-device market consolidates around low-priced sticks where scale determines which platform wins channel and app deals — making active-device counts and per-device monetization, not hardware profit, the metric investors watch.
- A Roku IPO priced off these unit figures would test whether public markets value a volume-led streaming platform over a premium-hardware rival like Apple TV — an open question given the company's rumored filing remains undecided.
The trend: US streaming-video hardware is shifting from premium set-top boxes toward mass-market sticks and dongles, where installed-base scale rather than device margin decides which platform controls the living room.