Providing market intelligence for more than 35 years

In The News

Why Amazon Will Stop Selling Apple TV and Google Chromecast

According to BloombergBusiness, which broke the story, neither Amazon nor its affiliated resellers will issue new product listings for the three devices as of that date. All unsold inventory will be pulled from the site as well. You will, however, be able to buy other streaming players, notably Roku models, the Xbox and PlayStation game systems, and—of course—the new Amazon Fire TV.

An Amazon spokesperson sent us the same statement issued to news outlets: "Over the last three years, Prime Video has become an important part of Prime. It’s important that the streaming media players we sell interact well with Prime Video in order to avoid customer confusion. Roku, XBox, PlayStation, and Fire TV are excellent choices."

The issue, it would seem, isn't that the banned Apple TV and Chromecast don't "interact" well with Amazon Prime; it's that unlike Roku, XBox, PlayStation, and Fire TV, they don't currently support Amazon Prime at all.

The Amazon move comes after Apple and Google updated their streaming media players: The new Apple TV is slated to arrive at the end of this month, and the revamped Chromecast is available now.

According to a recent Parks Associates report on streaming media devices, Amazon, Apple, Google, and Roku accounted for 86 percent of streaming media player sales to the nation's broadband households in 2014. That means that at the end of this month, Amazon will no longer sell two of the four top-selling players in the U.S. 

From the article "Why Amazon Will Stop Selling Apple TV and Google Chromecast" by Finance.Yahoo.com

Previously In The News

Parks: Antenna-Only TV Households Are 15% of Broadband Households

Parks also found a coincident decrease in pay-TV subscriptions and an increase in Internet-only video subscriptions in antenna-only households. “Pay-TV subscriptions have dropped each year since 20...

Parks Finds Smartwatch Adoption in 14% of U.S. Broadband Households

Smartwatches are increasingly popular while tablets may have peaked, according to research from Parks Associates. The “360 View: Mobility & The App Economy” report found that smartwatch adoption reach...

It’s Playball for MLB and Facebook

A Bloomberg story on the agreement said that insiders put the price for the package at between $30 million and $35 million. It said that Facebook is broadening its sports lineup. Last year, it agreed...

Parks: Smart Home Devices Driving Higher Demand for Tech Support, But Computer Problems are in Steady Decline

Consumer computer problems, as well as problems with entertainment devices are declining steadily year-over-year, dropping by more than 50% since 2014, according to a new report from Parks Associates....