Providing market intelligence for more than 35 years

In The News

Network Security: Hacking Fears Could Scare Consumers Away from Smart-Home Devices

The rising occurrence of high-profile security hacks and privacy breaches, as well as being personally victimized, are contributing to ever-increasing consumer anxiety about smart home devices and platforms, according to new research.

Parks Associates’ latest quarterly survey of 10,000 U.S. broadband households found that almost half of consumers rank data security and privacy issues as their greatest concerns about connecting devices to the Internet, compared to other problems they may encounter, such as with tech support. Forty percent of the respondents say they have experienced a privacy or security problem with a connected device in the past year, most commonly viruses and malware.

“Our most recent data reveals that almost half of U.S. broadband households are ‘very concerned’ [rating 6-7 on a 7-point scale] about hackers getting control of connected devices and hackers getting access to data from the device,” says Parks Associates Research Analyst Brad Russell. “In tracing trending changes on these consumer attitudes from 2014 to 2016, we find that while the total share of consumers who are ‘concerned’ [rating 5-7] has not appreciably changed, the share of those that are ‘very concerned’ has grown by 6% to 7%. Similarly, the share of consumers who are ‘not concerned [rating 1-3] has shrunk by about half.”

From the article "Network Security: Hacking Fears Could Scare Consumers Away from Smart-Home Devices" by Rodney Bosch.

Previously In The News

22% of US households get bundled Internet, mobile services

New data from Parks Associates shows 22% of US households now receive their Internet and mobile services as part of a bundle. New Parks Associates research released at CES® 2025 shows that 22% of U...

Parks Associates: Expect Consolidation Among Streamers to Accelerate in 2025

There are now 348 standalone streaming services in the United States and Canada, down slightly from a post-pandemic high of 366 in 2022 but up significantly from 2015, when there were just 154, ac...

Amazon's Ring announces smart smoke alarm as CES tech-palooza kicks off

Amazon doesn’t disclose unit sales for its Ring division, but Ring and rival home security company SimpliSafe comprise one-fifth of the U.S. market for professional monitoring systems, according to da...

New Sharp TVs will introduce TiVo’s operating system to US

TiVo’s operating system is already in use in Europe, but it faces stiff competition in the U.S. Data shared by Parks Associates in November shows that Amazon, Roku, and Samsung account for 65% of all...