Providing Market Intelligence for 40 Years

In The News

Why is Apple customers' appetite for its products insatiable?

Besides new phones, Apple is expected to significantly upgrade its Apple TV set-top box, which has barely changed since it went on sale in March 2012. The key difference in the new one, expected to cost about $149, will be voice-activated searching (using Siri) and control across multiple sources of content such as Netflix and iTunes, plus the App Store allied to a motion-sensitive controller, rather like Nintendo’s Wii.

The changes look timely, if not overdue. Apple TV is outsold by challengers including Amazon and Google, according to market research firm Parks Associates. Amazon’s Fire TV set-top box already has a voice-controlled interface, and Google’s Chromecast plug-in stick can be used to ‘cast’ content directly from a computer or phone to the TV. But there is plenty of room for growth, as only 20% of US households with broadband have a streaming device, the report found.

The refreshed Apple TV could also add the capability to play games and other apps. With gaming already a huge pursuit on smartphones, the prospect of it on a TV is exciting to iPhone developers, who for years have been wishing for a new Apple platform for apps. 

From the article "Why is Apple customers' appetite for its products insatiable?" by Charles Arthur.

Previously In The News

Fitness Tracker Industry Awaiting Olympics Windfall

Meanwhile, they'll also have one eye firmly fixed on Apple's smartwatch and devices of that ilk which are slated to overtake the sale of fitness-tracker devices by 2018 with 68 million sales compared...

Pay TV Companies Are Losing Ground To OTA

The latest Parks Associates study is out, and it has more bad news for traditional pay TV companies. Once again, satellite and cable companies are seeing losses. And it’s not just streaming services t...

Comcast’s Decision To Add Netflix To Its X1 Cable Boxes Proves Who Cable’s Real Enemy Is (And It Isn’t Netflix)

Research firm Parks Associates estimates that 64 percent of U.S. broadband households subscribe to streaming video service but that only 36 percent of U.S. broadband households are using streaming pla...

Netflix Has Been Secretly Slowing Down Your Videos For The Past Five Years

More than half of all U.S. households with broadband subscribe to Netflix, according to Parks Associates. Competitors such as Amazon video are in a quarter of broadband households and Hulu is in about...