How do you watch media in your home?
How many internet-connected devices do you have in your home? Think about that for a minute. Connected devices include phones, tablets, game consoles, smart TV’s, laptops and desktops, or anything else that displays media and connects to the internet: DVD and Blu-Ray players that are Wi-Fi enabled, OTT devices like Roku, FireTV, or AppleTV, and even wearables like an Apple Watch.
Do you have a couple? Maybe as many as 6?
According to comScore, the average consumer now has 10 active devices in their home. Households with four or more people have 18 active devices!
“An explosion of smart devices has fundamentally changed how media content is consumed” — comScore
The data comes from a panel of 3,600+ homes and 19,000+ devices collected daily throughout the U.S. Homes had to have a WiFi router to qualify. You’d expect those homes to be a little more tech savvy than the average home, but the numbers are significantly more than most people think.
Most popular devices
While the number of devices may surprise you, the increase in mobile use for media has been well documented. The phone has now overtaken the PC as the most prevalent device in the home. Mobile phones have a 37% share of connected devices in the home. PC’s are at 28% and tablets at 17%.
Gaming
32% of the homes in the study have gaming devices with Playstation 3 leading with a 31% share, followed by Xbox 360 (24%) and PlayStation 4 (22%). Homes with gaming devices are less likely to have cable and more likely to have a streaming subscription. The younger the people in the home, the more likely they are to stream media on their gaming device.
Streaming Boxes
Here’s the biggest growth in recent years. Nearly half of all the homes are using a streaming box, Smart TV or a connected DVD/Blu-Ray Player to watch media content. In homes that have a streaming subscription of some kind, 63% are using a streaming device.
In the streaming device battle, Roku is the clear market leader with a 49% share, followed by Chomecast (22%), Amazon FireTV (16%) and Apple TV (12%). Homes with Roku use it significantly more than other devices.
Streaming activity mirrors traditional Prime Time viewing. — comScore
Download the full report here.