Report: in Q1 2020, 54% of US households with broadband had a smart TV, surpassing the 42% share held by streaming devices like Roku
Streaming devices and set-top boxes like Roku or the Apple TV are increasingly losing ground to internet-connected smart TVs with the shift amplified by the coronavirus pandemic, new data shows. Tweets: @appleinsider Tweets: @appleinsider : Streaming devices and set-top boxes like #Roku or the #AppleTV are increasingly losing ground to internet-connected smart TVs with the shift amplified by the coronavirus pandemic, new data shows. https://appleinsider.com/... https://twitter.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
The set-top-box era is peaking. Back in August 2019, Parks Associates counted just 39% of US broadband homes owning a streaming media player, with growth nearly flat year over year — while Roku had already hedged by partnering with TCL and others to become the top-selling smart-TV platform in the US. The Q1 2020 crossover to 54% confirms that hedge was the right call: the connected TV itself, not an attached dongle, is now the default internet-video endpoint.
That matters for Apple most of all. The company's box-only approach had already slid from a leading position in 2017 to a minority share, while Roku's OS-licensing model meant every smart-TV sale became a Roku install rather than a lost customer.
First-order effects
- Standalone streaming-device makers lose their distribution wedge: with a majority of broadband households already owning a smart TV, there is no new screen left for a Roku box or Apple TV to justify attaching to.
- Roku is insulated relative to pure hardware rivals because its platform rides inside the winning form factor — its OS ships on the TVs that are displacing its own boxes.
Second-order effects
- TV manufacturers become the gatekeepers: with smart TVs at 54%, the contest shifts to which operating system each panel ships with, forcing Samsung, LG, and others to defend their own platforms against licensed ones like Roku OS.
- Apple's services ambitions depend on app placement rather than hardware attachment, pressuring it to keep the Apple TV app available on rival TV platforms instead of relying on its own box as the funnel.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, the living room consolidates around a handful of licensed TV operating systems — the follow-on data point came quickly, when Roku OS-powered smart TVs held 38% US market share in 2020 — and hardware margins matter less than ad and subscription revenue flowing through whichever OS owns the boot screen.
- Regulatory and competitive scrutiny may eventually follow the same path as mobile: control of a TV operating system becomes the chokepoint for content discovery and advertising, not the device brand on the bezel.
The trend: US home video is shifting from attached streaming sticks to smart-TV operating systems as the strategic asset, rewarding Roku's licensing pivot and stranding box-first players like Apple TV.