Roku says Roku TV was best-selling smart TV OS in North America for 2020
Roku says its Roku TV line was the top-selling smart TV OS in the US and Canada throughout all of 2020, using NPD data to illustrate the company’s powerful standing. “Roku TV held 38 percent of market share in the US and 31 percent in Canada, based on available data from January 5th through December 26th, 2020, maintaining the lead spot in both regions,” the company said in a press release today. That would signify that Samsung’s Tizen has fallen to second place. (Samsung is still the most popular individual TV maker, however, since Roku TV is divided among brands like TCL, Hisense, and others.)
Roku attributes the success of Roku TV to its simple user interface, vast app catalog, and a wide range of TV sizes at appealing prices. TCL has really carved out a reputation as the best choice for picture quality among all the companies making Roku TVs
In line with the strong momentum, Roku is also using CES 2021 to announce that partners for its “Roku TV Ready” initiative will soon be able to release wireless soundbars for Roku TV sets. Roku has a new reference design for the wireless soundbar, which connects to Roku TVs over Wi-Fi. Customers won’t have to worry about any lip sync problems, as latency is communicated between hardware devices to ensure proper A/V synchronization. Roku essentially picks the brains and processing for the reference design but leaves other choices — like enclosure design and the drivers / speakers used — to manufacturers. You’ll be able to quickly set up and adjust settings on these wireless soundbars right from the Roku TV’s settings menu.
Separate from this, Element is joining the Roku TV Ready program and plans to release a 2.0 soundbar and 2.1 soundbar / subwoofer combo later in 2021. Roku says it plans to expand the program to other countries throughout the year and will announce partners as that effort progresses.
Roku’s continued success and influence have led to standoffs with streaming service providers in recent months; it took right up until the release of Wonder Woman 1984 for the company to work out a deal with WarnerMedia to get HBO Max on its platform.
Roku says its Roku TV line was the top-selling smart TV OS in the US and Canada throughout all of 2020, using NPD data to illustrate the company’s powerful standing. “Roku TV held 38 percent of market share in the US and 31 percent in Canada, based on available data…
