Google TV adoption appears to be accelerating, with Google having added 50 million active users since January alone, and an estimated 130 million over the last two years.
Google regularly shares updates on the adoption of its TV operating system. The figures refer to active users on either Google TV or Android TV.
The operating system powers devices such as the latest Chromecast, the new Google TV Streamer, as well as many TV models from Hisense, Philips, Sony, TCL and others.
Google TV competes with other modern TV operating systems such as Amazon's FireTV, Apple's tvOS, Roku OS, LG's webOS and Samsung's Tizen.
130 million in the last 2 years
In May 2021, Google confirmed 80 million active users. By January 2022, the figure had reached 110 million, then 150 million in January 2023, and 220 million in January 2024.
With today's launch of the Google TV Streamer, the company confirmed that as of September 2024 the number of active users has reached 270 million. Google did not specify how it defines an active user (accounts, user profiles, weekly, monthly, yearly?).
Using linear interpolation, Google TV's growth seems to have accelerated in recent years, with around 70 million added in the last year and approximately 130 million in the last two years.
In its announcement, Google also said that Google TV is expanding to more countries including Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines.
FlatpanelsHD has visualized the growth:
How many use Roku & Fire TV?
Since the companies rarely specify their methodology, we have no way to determine if the numbers are 1:1 but for comparison Roku recently announced that it has 83.6 million active accounts worldwide as of Q2 2024. Devices powered by Roku OS are available only in select regions.
Amazon has not provided an update since December 2020 where FireTV had 50 million active users.
In October 2020, Samsung said that around 200 million people use Tizen worldwide, while LG in January 2024 said that webOS is powering more than 200 million LG TVs worldwide.
Apple does not release numbers for tvOS.
