Providing Market Intelligence for 40 Years

In The News

IRobot faces a murky future amid rising Roomba competitors

The company is still “number one,” said Elizabeth Parks, president of market research firm Parks Associates in Dallas. But it’s a shaky number one. Parks estimates that iRobot had nearly two-thirds of the robot vacuum market in 2018, but now holds only a 48 percent share. Meanwhile, rival robot makers like SharkNinja, Roborock, Eufy, and Ecovacs have been steadily chipping away.

One possible reason, according to Parks, is concern about data privacy. More advanced versions of the Roomba and other robots use visual sensors to generate detailed maps of the user’s home. This information is shared with the manufacturers to develop more advanced products, but it could also potentially be used to monitor users.

From the article, "IRobot faces a murky future amid rising Roomba competitors" by Hiawatha Bray

Previously In The News

Streaming Wars Accelerate: What’s Working and Why

Parks Associates, a Dallas-area research outfit, is tracking more than 200 OTT services and there are plenty more beyond those, points out analyst Hunter Sappington. “With so many services it is hard...

Why is privacy-minded Apple putting its new TV app on smart TVs notorious for spying on users?

That's not just conjecture. A report by Parks Associates stated that almost half of smart TV owners also used a streaming media player, and that they used their media player much more frequently than...

Why HBO Max, Peacock Are Deadlocked in Talks With Roku and Amazon

The OTT platforms’ leverage is real. Both say they have more than 40 million active accounts (and growing). “Amazon and Roku are beginning to play hardball with a lot of these services,” says Parks As...

Jeffrey Katzenberg’s Quibi Is Ready to Launch, but Will Viewers Bite?

There’s no doubt people will check out Quibi, particularly with stay-at-home directives set to run through the end of April. “America right now is a captive audience starved for something to do,” says...