Providing market intelligence for more than 35 years

In The News

Why Amazon Will Stop Selling Apple TV and Google Chromecast

According to BloombergBusiness, which broke the story, neither Amazon nor its affiliated resellers will issue new product listings for the three devices as of that date. All unsold inventory will be pulled from the site as well. You will, however, be able to buy other streaming players, notably Roku models, the Xbox and PlayStation game systems, and—of course—the new Amazon Fire TV.

An Amazon spokesperson sent us the same statement issued to news outlets: "Over the last three years, Prime Video has become an important part of Prime. It’s important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion. Roku, XBox, PlayStation, and Fire TV are excellent choices."

The issue, it would seem, isn't that the banned Apple TV and Chromecast don't "interact" well with Amazon Prime; it's that unlike Roku, XBox, PlayStation, and Fire TV, they don't currently support Amazon Prime at all.

The Amazon move comes after Apple and Google updated their streaming media players: The new Apple TV is slated to arrive at the end of this month, and the revamped Chromecast is available now.

According to a recent Parks Associates report on streaming media devices, Amazon, Apple, Google, and Roku accounted for 86 percent of streaming media player sales to the nation's broadband households in 2014. That means that at the end of this month, Amazon will no longer sell two of the four top-selling players in the U.S. 

From the article "Why Amazon Will Stop Selling Apple TV and Google Chromecast" by Finance.Yahoo.com

Previously In The News

Comcast is totally okay with you not having an Xfinity set-top box

“Pay-TV providers want to retain subscribers, so they want to make sure that you stay inside their ecosystem,” says Brett Sappington, a media analyst at Parks Associates. “If you don’t have a reason t...

91% of viewers like streaming aggregation, survey says

Not only are consumers saying video aggregators are simple to navigate across, but they also value having a single bill for all their apps. OTT bundling is a key source of revenue for pay TV and other...

Apple earnings could offer clues on streaming performance

Consumers get a year of the streaming service for free with purchase of a new Apple device. Converting those users into paying customers might be tricky, said Steve Nason with Parks Associates....

Netflix saw subscribers drop post-lockdown. But Disney+ might not face the same fate

Like all streaming services, Disney+ saw strong growth during the pandemic but competitor Netflix reported losing subscribers last quarter. But Disney+ is cheaper than Netflix – an increasingly import...