IDC: Amazon leads streaming device market in Q2

Sales of digital media adapters like Amazon Fire TV and Google Chromecast grew by 26.8% year-on-year in the second quarter, according to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Smart Home Device Tracker.

Amazon’s Fire TV

Amazon’s line of Fire TV products led the market in Q2 2018 with close to 5 million units shipped worldwide, according to the research.

Google’s Chromecast came second, shipping 3.7 million devices globally during Q2, while Roku came in third with 2.8 million devices shipped.

“The tight integration of content and hardware has been a highly successful strategy to date and we only expect the walls in these gardens to grow taller and wider as these companies begin to create ecosystem lock-in by further integrating with additional smart home devices and services,” said Jitesh Ubrani senior research analyst for IDC Mobile Device Trackers.

“Despite this, IDC still expects the market for more neutral hardware platforms like Roku to grow as consumers are rarely faithful to one content provider.”

Overall, IDC said that the worldwide market for smart home devices – including connected lights, smart speakers, connected thermostats, smart TVs, home security products and digital media adapters –grew 38.5% to 130.1 million shipments in Q2.