IHS Inc., the leading global source of critical information and insight, released key findings from its Connected Device Market Monitor.
The findings of the research shows, as of year-end 2015, the world now contains 8.1 billion connected smartphones, tablets, personal computers, TVs, TV-attached devices and audio devices.
“The proliferation of media-enabled connected endpoints has implications for media consumption, media production, broadband infrastructure, and the business itself of network management and traffic discrimination,” said Merrick Kingston, principal analyst-connected home, at IHS Technology. “It drives media consumption, IP traffic and more.”
The observation also found that smartphones outnumber tablets by five to one. Year-on-year, smartphones contribute roughly half a billion new devices to the market; tablet and OTT set-tops are also growing quickly, but operate a full order of magnitude below the smartphone. By the year 2020, this ratio will widen. Within the forecast period, the smartphone-to-tablet ratio rises to nearly 10:1.
The latest IHS Technology reports also noted the big changes in the wider-connected, media-enabled hardware ecosystem. For all its early momentum, Chromecast had been unable to out-ship the Apple TV. This finally changed during the first quarter of 2016 with Apple TV shipping 1.7 million units compared to Google pushing 3.2 million Chromecasts to market.
“We anticipate that this reversal will persist,” Kingston said. “Since the introduction of the fourth-generation Apple TV, Apple and Google have pursued vastly different strategies.”
The Apple TV, starting at $149, has inexorably been shuttled into the segment’s top end. The device is now positioned as a premium hub that appeals to consumers of digital video, to casual gamers and to iOS owners who are intrinsically attracted to Apple’s singular user-interface.
As of year-end 2015, Netflix addresses 339 million connected devices in the U.S. As a fraction of the total U.S. installed base, this is equivalent to addressing 32 percent of the audio-visual hardware landscape.
The days when a multi-screen pay TV service could uniquely lay claim to a device or platform are effectively gone. Pay TV media apps are virtually guaranteed to sit alongside the Netflix application on consumers’ end devices.
