Three out of four U.S. households that view streaming video content watch Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ: NFLX). In the half of households that use only one streaming app, that one app is Netflix. Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) YouTube garners 25% of households that use only a single app.
In terms of penetration, Netflix is available in 40% of Wi-Fi-equipped households, with YouTube running in second place with about 30% penetration. Amazon.com Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) Amazon Video is used in about 18% of Wi-Fi households and Hulu in about 12%. Hulu is jointly owned by media giants Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS), Comcast Corp. (NASDAQ: CMCSA), Twenty-First Century Fox Inc. (NASDAQ: FOXA) and Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX).
The data were reported Thursday by comScore in its latest State of OTT (over-the-top) report. According to comScore, 51 million U.S. households viewed OTT programming in April 2017, and OTT programming reaches 54% of U.S. homes with Wi-Fi. The average home viewed 49 hours of OTT programming in the month, and those viewing hours were spread across an average of 15 days.
The most popular devices for delivering OTT programming are streaming sticks (like Google’s Chromecast and Amazon’s FireTV) and set-top boxes (like Roku or Apple TV). Some 38 million U.S. households use streaming sticks and boxes, and nearly three-quarters use these devices to stream OTT content.
A total of 28 million U.S. households own smart TVs and of those, 63% of households used their smart TVs to stream OTT content.
The four most popular streaming sticks/boxes are Roku, with a penetration of 16% of all U.S. Wi-Fi-equipped households, Amazon’s FireTV with 14% penetration, Chromecast with 8% penetration and Apple Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) Apple TV with 6% penetration.
Samsung claims 33% of the smart TV market among Wi-Fi-enabled households, and Vizio claims 30% penetration. LG (10%), Sony (7%) and Alcatel (5%) round out the top five smart TV suppliers.
More than a third (34%) of the OTT viewing audience does not subscribe to pay TV, and half of that total does not even use an antenna to snag local broadcast TV. Of the other two-thirds of OTT viewers, 44% subscribe to cable and 22% subscribe to satellite pay TV.
In streaming only households, Hulu tops Netflix in viewing hours per month, 36.8 hours to 35.6 hours. Among cord-cutter households, Netflix gets 38 monthly OTT viewing hours to Hulu’s 36. Among cord-never households, Netflix gets 35 monthly viewing hours to Hulu’s 32. YouTube and Amazon trail by significant margins in both categories.
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