The media streaming world is alive and growing, as streaming set top box maker Roku has just announced that it passed the 10 million unit milestone.
According to the press release, Roku has sold (not just shipped) over 10 million media streaming boxes since launching in 2008. As it stands now, the company has a media streaming stick (that starts at just $49 and competes directly with Google Chromecast) as well as three other tiered media streaming boxes.
In terms of software, Roku has 1,800 streaming channels and has been working to integrate that software into other manufacturers’ hardware, such as TVs.
Roku mentioned that their own customers account for 37 million hours of video streamed per week, doubling that of major competitors like Apple TV, Chromecast, and Amazon Fire TV.
While the stat is certainly impressive for Roku as a company, it’s perhaps even more exciting for the folks working on the media side of the industry. As users take more and more control of what they watch and when they watch it, entrepreneurs are lying in wait to jump into the never-ending mess of cable, copyright and courtrooms to try and unbundle the way we consume media.
Companies that have come before, most notably Aereo, haven’t been able to crack the code and truly change the way the media industry controls its content. But as Roku’s latest stat suggests, the world is moving to on-demand whether the TV industry likes it or not.
No comments:
Post a Comment