A recent IHS Technology’s Connected Device Market Monitor Report shows that 8.1 billion users have connected smart-phones, tablets, personal computers, TVs, TV-attached devices and audio devices worldwide as of the year end 2015.
Africa Internet Usage and 2015 Population statistics show that there were 1.158 billion users connected on the African continent with over 97 million users connected in Nigeria alone as at November 2015, according to a Nigerian Communication Commission report.
Globally there is an average of four devices per household. The IHS report examines the key trends and data for markets, including global devices, over the top (OTT) and Pay TV multi-screen.
Merrick Kingston, principal analyst, Connected Home at IHS Technology, said:“The proliferation of media-enabled connected endpoints has implication for media consumption, media production, broadband infrastructure and the business itself of network management and traffic discrimination. It drives media consumption, IP traffic and more.”
IHS Technology’s report also reveals that smart-phones are mostly connected by a 5:1 ratio compared with the ratio of tablets. Smart-phones contribute half a million new devices to the market every year.
There has also been an increase in the tablets, OTT set-ups but this is not to be compared with the pace of the smart-phones. The report predicts further that by 2020, the gap in between the smart-phones and tablets would get wider which will bring the growth ratio to nearly 10:1.
Other Internet of Things (IoT) -enabled devices apart from PCs, smart-phones, and tablets are making a tremendous impact on media and entertainment industries, regardless of the growing excitement in the vicinity of the connected devices.
The fresh report also noted the big changes in the wider-connected, media-enabled hardware ecosystem. Over time, Chrome-cast had been unable to out-ship the Apple TV. But the trend changed eventually in the first quarter of 2016 with Apple shipping 1.7 million units compared to Google pushing 3.2 million Chrome-cast to market. “We anticipate that this reversal will persist,” Kingston said. “Since the introduction of the fourth-generation Apple TV, Apple and Google have pursued vastly different strategies.”
The Apple TV, starting at $149, has inexorably been shuttled into the segment’s top end. The device is now positioned as a premium hub that appeals to consumers of digital video, to casual gamers and to iOS owners who are intrinsically attracted to Apple’s singular user-interface.
Chrome-cast, at $35, is a veritable bargain, naturally complements portable Android devices and offers a no-frills casting experience that obviates the very need for a user-interface.
Revealed in the report also was Netflix’s 32 percent of market share among the total connected devices in the United States.
