The Verge

Netflix and other streaming services have dealt with a variety of password-stealing schemes and other scams for years. Netflix announced earlier this year it was trying to crack down on password-sharing among its customers; even if you’re only sharing account access with people you know, the more people who have the info, the greater the chances that info could be compromised. According to analysis from research firm Parks Associates, password piracy and sharing cost streaming s ...read more

Companies have already started cracking down on shared passwords. Netflix limits users to two simultaneous streams, unless they pay for an upgraded plan that allows for four. ESPN now only allows five streams from its app and is reportedly considering dropping that number to three. It used to be 10.

Cable and satellite companies appear to be having a particularly hard time grappling with password sharing, given that they're continuously losing subscribers and revenue. The TV ...read more

Apple TV is continuing to lose ground to Roku and Amazon in the living room, a survey by Parks Associates has found. The consumer research company sampled 10,000 US homes and based its results on those which had at least one streaming player, according to AppleInsider. Roku jumped year-over-year from 32 percent to 37 percent, which is a foothold that none of its competitors can quite match. But Amazon is also gaining momentum and moved up from 16 percent to 24 percent.

From ...read more

However at least two research firms have reported that Roku is leading the race in the OTT market: Parks Associates said earlier this year that Roku accounted for 30 percent of streaming media players purchased in the US from the first quarter of 2015 to the same quarter this year; while comScore recently reported that Roku has 49 percent of household market share, with Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, and Google's Chromecast making up the share of the rest.

From the article "Roku' ...read more

The lower end of the streaming video market is one of the fastest growing segments for the company, Roku says, both in its line of relatively inexpensive Roku TVs and its separate streaming media devices. And according to data from research firm Parks Associates, streaming sticks accounted for 50 percent of all media streaming unit sales in 2015. So it makes sense that Roku would try to appeal to even more people with low-cost, entry-level hardware.

From the article "Roku's ...read more

Last year, Apple held 40.6 percent of the global streaming device market according to a Frost & Sullivan report. The annual update to its Streaming Media Devices study showed that the market nearly doubled to about 31 million units sold in 2014 thanks largely to a surge of about 10 million Chromecast shipments. Roku came in third with a 13 percent share, while Amazon trailed with 8 percent. (WD is lumped in other, presumably.) A Parks Associates report says that people spend mor ...read more

“We could be at a real tipping point,” says Harry Wang, an analyst who leads health and mobile research for Parks Associates. “Fitness devices and apps have been a fast-growing but still relatively niche market. These new ecosystems, if they gain traction, could finally push the industry into the mainstream.” Success isn’t guaranteed, but Wang says it makes sense for the fragmented digital health industry to rally behind powerful companies. Apple's Healthkit and Google Fit can h ...read more