A report from Strategy Analytics shows that The Amazon Fire TV devices, both the stick and Box outsold Apple TV, Roku, and the Google Chromecast during the first quarter of 2015. This quantitative report verifies our more general observation that the Fire TV was a top seller at Best Buy and Amazon.com. 3.5 million Amazon Fire TV boxes and dongles have been sold so far this year. There are a few likely reasons for this.
The Power of Amazon Marketing
Amazon.com is the top online retailer in the US. Amazon can put as many ads for their products on its website as it chooses. This means that any listing for Fire TV competitors can be accompanied by ads for the Fire TV.
Amazon Seller Rankings Omitted
There are a number of devices on the market including more than four Roku models 3 Apple TV’s the Chromecast and a number of other devices including the Google Nexus Player. And when a
customer is taking a look at the listing for one of those products there is an option to see where it ranks in a given category such as media streamers, or digital receivers etc. So that means if someone is taking a look at the Chromecast there is an option to see other streaming products and compare their merits. There are two exceptions to this, The Amazon Fire TV and the Amazon Fire TV Stick. So what this means is that every other streaming product on the website is subject to direct comparison in price and features via one click while Amazon prevents customers from a one click option to do the same with their products.
Easy to Modify
Amazon never advertises this but it is capable of running Kodi and other variations of the program known as XBMC. There are a number of Android based set-top boxes designed around Kodi, but they typically use a tablet based version of Android which brings certain challenges. Android set-top boxes do not have apps built for TV’s. The Fire TV does in fact it has over 1700. So the Fire TV gives users the best of both worlds, a huge library of TV Apps including the stalwarts like Netflix, Hulu, Watch ESPN and of course Amazon’s own service along with Kodi in an easy to use interface. This can not be ignored as a factor in its popularity.
People buying second devices
Apple has sold over 15 million of its Apple TV boxes since it’s debut. Roku now boasts over 13 million units sold. The Fire TV though has sold 3.5 million in 2015 so it is quickly catching up. But what the numbers do not let us know is how many people are choosing the Fire TV or Fire TV stick as secondary devices or just trying something new out on top of the devices they already own.
