One of the most popular questions I get from new cord cutters is what streaming player should they get. I could give my personal opinion, but maybe it would be better to ask our readers.
So last week we surveyed over 1,000 of our readers what streaming players they used. It is likely no surprise that Roku is still in a solid lead with over 71% of our readers using a Roku streaming player. Amazon’s Fire TV came in second with 40.8%, and the Apple TV was in fifth place behind smart TVs and laptops/PCs.
The following is the full break down:
- Roku 71.3%
- Fire TV 40.8%
- Laptop/PC 33%
- Smart TV 23.7%
- Apple TV 23.3%
- Chromecast 20.6%
- Game System 17.8%
- DVR 23.7%
- Nvidia Shield 5.3%
- Mi Box 2.4%
- Nexus Player 1.3%
- Other 8.6%
The only real noticeable change between our Summer 2017 and our Spring 2017 surveys is the Apple TV falling from fourth to fifth behind smart TVs. Last time we ran the survey Roku had 71.9%, Fire TV had 41.5%, and Apple TV had 28.5%. Smart TVs last time came in at 20.1%.
Roku and the Fire TV are both steady with less than a 1% change over the last few months. It will be interesting to see if the new Roku TVs and the new Fire TV edition smart TVs will effect these results.
The other wild card is app support for the Fire TV and Roku. Yesterday Hulu live TV beta came to the Fire TV and DIRECTV NOW came to Roku. Both had been on the Apple TV. How will this change impact the sale of the Apple TV?
For now we will have to wait until the fall to find out if that will have any effect.
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