Netflix Rules US Video Streaming

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.

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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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