Roku is still sitting pretty in the top smart TV OS spot in Canada and the United States.
A new report from Roku that cites NPD’s Weekly Retail Tracking Service says the company holds 31 percent of the smart TV operating system market in Canada.
Roku says its popularity is in part due to its easy to use remote, simple interface and TV manufacturer partnerships. Its cheap entry point also helps.
According to Statista, which cites data from Q1 2020, Roku is actually the fourth most popular smart TV OS worldwide, with more global brands like Samsung’s Tizen and LG’s WebOS each holding a little more market share. Even the Sony PlayStation had a larger install base than Roku worldwide.
All that said, Roku having control over a large portion of the North American TV market is good for the company since it seems to be shifting to being better at selling ads. Thus, the more TVs that Roku is on, the more ads it can show people, so the more money it can make.
Beyond its market share, Roku has also announced that it’s releasing its reference design for soundbars so more companies can build ‘Roku ready’ soundbars. This means third-party companies can now build soundbars that work seamlessly with Roku TVs and streaming sticks.
These are also useful since they let people control their TV, soundbar and Roku all with a single remote, which can be a nice change of pace from the piles of remotes some users are used to.
The other crazy feature of these soundbars is that they’ll be wireless and connect to your TV via Wi-Fi. This is a huge plus for people that hate dealing with lots of cables. That said, there will still be a power cabled included with the speaker systems.
In other news, Roku also announced today that it’s acquiring most of the content from the failed mobile-focused streaming service Quibi.
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