The number of American homes with a smart television set capable of streaming video content and utilizing other Internet features rose to 68 percent this year, according to a survey released by Parks Associates this week.
The survey, which evaluated answers from 8,000 United States-based consumers, showed the number of smart TVs in American households increased 14 percent compared to 2020 figures.
The data was released as part of the company’s consumer research report, “Battle of the Platforms: Assessing Connected TV Ecosystems,” which will be discussed further at the organization’s Future of Video conference later this month.
The report showed 46 percent of U.S. homes use a streaming media device — something other than a smart TV, like a Roku Ultra, Google Chromecast or Amazon Fire TV stick — up 4 percent compared to 2020.
The study suggests the streaming media market, while slowing, is still relatively healthy, as Americans switch platforms or connected dongles told older, but otherwise useful, TV sets. But the increase in smart TV adoption also infers that more consumers are happy to move away from older, non-smart high definition TVs in favor of smart TVs that offer access to the apps they want to use.
“TVs are still the central viewing device for US households,” Sarah Lee, a research analyst at Parks Associates, said in a statement, noting that Samsung’s Tizen TV is the most-commonly used smart TV operating system that isn’t also offered in a standalone streaming device.
“While smart TVs remain the preferred streaming video platform for the TV, streaming media players continue to be a practical, convenient, and cost-effective solution for a consistent experience, and brands can use them as springboards to promote their own content channels and smart TV models,” Lee said.
Parks Associates found the average U.S. household consumes 35.6 hours of video per week across all video-capable devices. The overwhelming majority of time spent with video content on TV devices alone is 20.4 hours, the biggest share per week, the research firm noted. The figure didn’t include time spent with social video platforms like TikTok, though it wasn’t clear from the abbreviated report viewed by The Desk if YouTube was counted in the measurement. YouTube is the most-popular streaming video platform in the U.S., according to several consecutive “The Gauge” reports by Nielsen.
When it comes to the most-used, non-social video apps, Parks Associates found Americans subscribed to Prime Video the most this year — the third consecutive year that the Amazon-owned video platform outpaced Netflix, which came in second. Amazon’s Fire TV was also one of the three dominant streaming video platforms in the United States; Roku and Samsung’s Tizen were the other two.
