Roku sells 5 million media streamers, celebrates milestone with revealing infographic

By Ian White April 11, 2013

The folks at Roku are in total bragging mode this week and for good reason. It’s been almost five years since the first Roku went on sale and the little streaming box is doing really well. Who would have thought back then that this little company would one day challenge Apple for market supremacy in its segment with more than five million units sold in the United States?

Roku is so excited about its march toward imperial domination, it released a cute little graphic with some tidbits about customer use. Apparently, Lexington, Kentucky is the most popular market for Roku’s products – whodathunkit? Think that’s something? Dig this: Someone with a ton of time on their hands managed to continuous stream Netflix video for every single second of an entire week – that’s 10,080 minutes in seven days. All told, Netflix has delivered 8 billion music and video streams in the last five years. No wonder big network television has been acting nervous lately.

The other big news coming from Roku this week is that it now offers streaming TV content from Time Warner Cable (TWC) through it’s devices for those with a TWC subscription. The deal adds the Food Network, Animal Planet, HGTV, Bravo, and almost 300 other networks to the mix, which already includes HBO GO.

At this point, there are few reasons not to get a Roku box in your home, especially for those looking to lower their monthly bills by cutting the cord. If Aereo survives the last legal hurdle in its path, the future will look pretty bright for consumers who stream have the added freedom to save over-the-air broadcasts in the cloud; this crazy thing called freedom of choice might win out in the end.

Roku has clearly established itself as the front runner leaving rivals such as Boxee scrambling to reinvent itself before the consumer throws in the towel and moves on. In the same vein, it means that Panasonic, which just introduced its first media steaming boxes this week, have an obstacle as high as Mt. Fuji to climb at this point in the game.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Ian has been a full-time A/V journalist since 1999, covering the world of high-end audio, video, music, and film for Digital…

Audio / Video

You have until June 9 to save $500 off an 85-inch Samsung The Frame TV

A painting being displayed on a Samsung The Frame QLED.

Looking for great TV deals? You still have time to save $500 on the Samsung 85-inch The Frame QLED TV when you head over to Samsung. It usually costs $4,300, but right now the popular and stylish TV is down to $3,800, making it more affordable than before. If you’re keen to invest in a large TV but love to save money too, this is a good opportunity. Here’s what you need to know about the TV before you decide to buy.

Why you should buy the Samsung 85-inch The Frame QLED TV
One of the best QLED TVs around, the Samsung 85-inch The Frame QLED TV is a delight in so many ways. At its core, it’s a fantastic QLED TV with 100% Color Volume with Quantum Dot technology saturating the screen with a billion colors. QLED adds a layer of quantum dots to a TV’s LED backlight with these dots, once exposed to light, emitting their own light with a high level of efficiency to provide great picture quality.

Audio / Video

It’s your last chance to get up to $1,900 off a Samsung OLED TV

The Samsung S90C in a living room environment.

There’s still a little time left to snap up one of the best TV deals available today, with Samsung still selling the 83-inch S90C OLED TV for $3,500 instead of $5,400. The $1,900 discount is a pretty vast one and one that you certainly don’t want to skip. If you’re looking for a great new TV for your large living space, you’re going to love this deal. Let’s take a look at how great the Samsung S90C OLED TV is.

Why you should buy the Samsung 83-inch S90C OLED TV
Samsung makes some of the best TVs around and we’re huge fans of the Samsung 83-inch S90C OLED TV. It has an OLED panel so you get self-lit pixels which can light up independently of each other. That means that you can enjoy the deepest blacks and the brightest colors all on the same scene, ensuring you never miss a detail. The Samsung 83-inch S90C OLED TV uses a Neural Quantum Processor with 4K upscaling so its AI-powered processor can transform whatever you’re watching. There’s also HDR OLED which uses AI deep learning to analyze each scene, detecting areas that need to brighter, darker, or simply richer in color.

Audio / Video

This Sonos Bluetooth speaker has a discount in time for beach weather

Sonos Roam SL in black on a rainy rock outdoors.

A day out at the beach. Cooking outside using a discounted grill or smoker. Pool party madness. What do they all three have in common? A lot of fun, but also a great chance to get any sound equipment ruined by a sudden downpour or a splash of inevitable water. That's why there are models of waterproof Bluetooth speakers, of which the Sonos Roam SL is one. And the good news is that you can get yours at a discounted rate before summer officially gets here. Right now, the Sonos Roam SL is just $127, which is $33 down from its typical price of $160. To get yours, all you need to do is tap the button below. Consider also reading below, as we examine the speaker and see why it is considered an easy pick up.

Why you should buy the Sonos Roam SL
The Sonos Roam SL is an easy-to-use, compact speaker for wherever you roam. Connect to it easily over Wi-Fi at home or Bluetooth on the go, giving you easy options to control the sound in a way that makes sense for you and your location. If you're at home and connected to your Wi-Fi system and have other Sonos speakers, you can even get the Sonos multi-room experience, which syncs everything in a nice way. So, you can keep the Sonos Roam SL out on the patio (where it might get rained upon) and keep the best Sonos speakers indoors and have a really cool, worry-free party experience that not many others will be able to replicate.