Roku is still dominating the field and Amazon FireTV is in second place. Over the last year, Apple TV has surpassed game consoles to become the third most popular TV streaming device, according to a report by Conviva.

Streaming TV growth
Conviva says that its sensor technology can analyze 100 billion streams across 3 billion apps globally per year. From Q2 2018 to Q2 2019 streaming viewing hours more than doubled, with 130% overall growth and 143% growth in 'connected TV'.

- "Despite extraordinary growth, streaming is still a nascent market," said Bill Demas, CEO of Conviva.

The report outlines how Roku continues to dominate the segment, despite its lack of presence in many countries. As measured in viewing hours, Roku has a 43% share within the 'connected TV' segment that makes up 55% of total streaming hours. Amazon FireTV is second, up from seventh in 2017, with its 18% share.

Video quality is also improving.

- "Consumption on connected TV continues to dominate with 55% share of all viewing hours in Q2 2019. Connected TVs also delivered huge improvements in quality with 48% less buffering, 6% better picture quality, and 34% less video start failures than the year prior. Among mobile devices, which commanded 23% share of viewing, iPhone saw the biggest growth at 114% with Android and iPad not far behind, up 110% and 97% respectively," the report said.


Apple TV is gaining ground
Over the last year, Apple TV has surpassed game consoles such as PlayStation and Xbox to become the third most popular TV streaming device with a 10% share of viewing hours, according to Conviva.

- "Within connected TV’s 55% share, Roku saw 173% year-over-year growth to maintain its leadership position with 43% share of all connected TV viewing. Amazon Fire TV, up 145% in viewing to capture 18% share, maintained its second-place spot among connected TV devices. To round out the top three, Apple TV was up 129% to account for 10% share."

Apple introduced tvOS almost four years ago with the Apple TV HD and added Apple TV 4K to the line-up almost two years ago. It is available as a media box only while the Roku and FireTV platforms are increasingly being implemented in Smart TVs. As for other Smart TVs, Samsung's Tizen is the only platform to break out of 'other' with its 1% share.

Conviva notes that Apple TV delivers the highest bitrate, a proxy for video quality.

- "A notable mention for Apple TV which continued to dominate on two key metrics to again boast the industry’s shortest video start time at 2.36 seconds versus 4.59 seconds for the connected TV category and highest bitrate, a proxy for picture quality, at 6.94 Mbps as compared to 5.34 Mbps for the category."


 - Source: Conviva