Report: Chromecast surpasses Apple TV in the video streaming market

The popularity of Google’s Chromecast stick shows no indication of declining , and as the number of countries the device is available in continues to grow, more and more consumers are starting to take notice of what this little device is capable of. So many in fact, that a new report by The Wall Street Journal indicates that the Chromecast has surpassed Apple TV all together in video streaming, to become the second most popular streaming device in the United States.

Market research company Parks Associates was responsible for the actual survey, which covered a span of 10,000 homes in the United States. Each home in the survey had a broadband internet connection, with the survey discovering that 10% bought a streaming stick between January and October of 2014. Chromecast came in at second place with 20% of streaming devices sold, with Roku taking the number one slot at 29%. When compared to the same survey taken for the first 10 months of 2013, it’s clear to see that Google’s device has eaten some market share, as Roku at that time came in first at 46% and Apple TV second with 26%.

The 2014 survey also shows that the Amazon Fire TV stick is already off to a respectable start, a month after its debut, coming in fourth place with 10%.

Price points would appear to be a determining factor here, as the Chromecast, Roku Stick, and Amazon Fire stick all come in at under $50, which is half the cost of Apple TV. As director of research Barbara Kraus points out, “Amazon’s Fire TV streaming stick leaves Apple as the only top player without a stick product in the streaming media device category”, with Apple instead choosing to rely on their TV top box set for streaming services.

In 2014, Google and Amazon have also released TV top box sets (Amazon Fire TV and Google’s Nexus Player) that both have optional game controllers.

With the success of Roku, Google, and Amazon stream sticks (Microsoft also recently introduced their own streaming adapter in September), might it be a signal to Apple to manufacture one of its own? As the popularity of streaming devices grows, it might not be such a bad idea. Barbera went on to state that over a quarter of US homes will have a streaming device by 2015, with over 50 million homes projected to have one by 2017.