Samsung extended the lead of the Tizen smart television platform to take 12.7% of the global market in 2020. Google, Roku and Amazon grew their share but the connected television and video platform market remains fragmented across an estimated 1.3 billion devices. As a result, service providers have to deal with multiple platforms to reach a growing global online television and video audience.
These connected television platforms support a new age of television and video viewing.
“The transition to global internet-based television and video services during this decade will be enabled by smart TV systems controlled by a few leading technology vendors,” noted David Mercer of Strategy Analytics.
“As streaming on TVs becomes the preferred video viewing behaviour, content providers will rely increasingly on the UI, analytics, advertising and content discovery capabilities of connected TV platforms and the firms controlling them. As we are seeing in smartphones today, we envisage strategic conflicts eventually emerging between content and TV streaming platforms which will raise challenging structural and regulatory questions.”
The Tizen platform used by Samsung has grown over the last five years, overtaking more established platforms like PlayStation, Xbox and Apple TV OS.
The number of Tizen devices in use worldwide rose by 21% year-on-year to 162.3 million, according to Strategy Analytics, taking a 12.7% market share.
While Roku is the leading platform in the United States, where it represents nearly a fifth of connected television devices in use, Tizen is the leader in 22 of 25 countries surveyed.
LG WebOS comes second in 13 of the markets reported, with 7.3% market share globally.
Samsung and LG lead the field, ahead of Sony PlayStation, Amazon Fire OS and Roku TV, each with 6.4% market share.
Google follows with 5.9% for Android TV, with an estimated 75.5 million devices, although it saw a 42% increase in 2020.
Unlike the mobile market, which is dominated by Android and to a lesser extent Apple, connected television and video platforms come in many flavours.
What is most striking is how fragmented the market remains, with seven different platforms representing almost half of installed devices and the top 10 taking 56.1%, leaving others to take as much of the market as the top six.
Global TV Streaming Platform and Vendor Market Share is published by Strategy Analytics.