As the worldwide shipments of all Android TV Devices are projected to increase from 7.6 million in 2016 to 40.1 million in 2021 according to S&P and increased demand for Android TV STBs is also expected leading to an increased clout in pay TV market for Google. The market for Android TV Boxes has gone up in US after both DISH and DIRECTV announced in 2017. In 2018, France and Japan market will also see a increased dominance of Android TV Boxes with Bouygues Telecom and NTT DoCoMo announcing its release respectively in 2018.
What Google would be focusing with the push for Android TV & Android STBs is the flexibility to the operators in offering popular over-the-top (OTT) apps like Netflix and Hulu, as well as the other apps that are found in the Google Play store. The other advantages of Android TV is that the users can do gaming, engage in social media and look for weather apps. It gives seamless connectivity with Smartphones and tablets with Android they can stream video and photos to as well as control an Android TV device.
According to experts, “Consumer electronics, or CE, vendors choosing to use Android for their products gain the advantage of an ecosystem that is supported by a huge number of developers without the development costs. Additionally, the operating system is upgraded at a regular cadence, and security updates come as needed.”
Experts predict that Smart televisions and set-top boxes (STBs) are expected to be the two dominant product categories for Android TV through the end of 2021. S&P estimated that if in 2016, 4.2% of smart televisions shipped with Android TV that number is expected to grow to 13.3% in 2021.
Shipments of the Android TV-powered STB market, are expected to grow from 1.2 million in 2016 to nearly 12 million in 2021 and there would be an increase in revenue in this segment. It is expected to grow from $97 million in 2016 to $730 million in 2021.
