Apple dominates incredibly small market of video Streamer

Apple TV continues to dominate the market for media streaming devices, although the total market is small enough to put the future of the entire category in doubt.

Apple TV - the first and second generation models - all about control 55% of the market of media streamer, a report published this week In-Stat, which tracks the number of units sold in 2010.

A little over $ 3.5 million media streaming devices, also known as over-the-top (OTT) set - tops, were sold in the whole of 2010. However, Apple sold 4.69 million iPads in the last quarter alone; in April, Netflix added support for the iPad via an application.

A separate report In-Stat, which is about four times as many respondents said that they watched video content on a television via a PC as a separate decoder as an Apple TV or a Roku box. Mike Paxton, the analyst of In-Stat is the author of the media-stream report, said the sales figures led to suspect that the media dedicated streaming set - top box may not be around a few years, or relegated to only a set of services.

"Any of these shall any large volumes - a species of thousand of torque, a few thousand there," he said, speaking of the smaller players. "It just makes no sense when there are so many other devices at home already do so.".

Apple TV sent 1.95 million units, or about 55 per cent, In-Stat found. In second cam Roku, that its sales of 450,000 units, or at less than 13 percent. TiVo only sold 175 000 units, In-Stat said, or about 5 percent. Logitech's Google TV, including many, more products of Iomega, Boxee, Western Digital, Sony and Seagate sold less than 100,000 units, said Paxton. However, several of those, including the review of Logitech, area of Boxee and others, began selling towards the end of the year. In-Stat has not release the full report, reserving for its customers.

In 2007, Apple dubbed the Apple TV "hobby" and rarely fractured figures of sale of the product until the introduction of a smaller, $99 Apple TV last September. In the week before Christmas, Apple said that it had sold one million units.

The said problem, Paxton and In-Stat research, is that many other devices provide the same services - Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and Vudu, among others — that dedicated streaming devices.

A small In-Stat 393 users survey revealed that 41.0% of those who see the video content on the TV using a PC. About 25.7% use consoles video games such as the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3, which are offered by the media streaming services. And a number surprise-34,6% accessed these services for a TV connected, more and 22.4 percent that uses a connected Blu - ray player. The category only device to signal users less than the zone video streamer/OTT, 11.2% were those who used a software of jointly with another device for watching the video, at 6.4%.

Rumours appeared that Apple could launch its own connected television dedicated, bringing the Apple TV as a platform, rather than as a dedicated area inside. "If this product [Apple TV] is going, this market stops at nothing," said Paxton.