Android TV and Google TV Now Have Over 150 Million Monthly Active Users
- Laurent Giret
- Jan 06, 2023
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As many TV manufacturers are introducing new TV models at CES this week, Google announced that its Android TV and Google TV platforms are gaining momentum. There are now 150 million monthly active devices running Android TV or Google TV, and that includes Google’s own Chromecast devices and Smart TVs that ship with one of the two flavors of Google’s TV software.
If Google has been developing TV software for more than a decade, there have been some reboots along the way. The original version of Google TV that launched back in 2010 was actually pretty clunky, but that didn’t stop former Google CEO Eric Schmit to claim back in 2011 that would end up shipping on “the majority of televisions” by 2012. That obviously didn’t happen, but Google later had some success with its more basic Chromecast devices before it launched its new Android TV platform back in 2014.
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While Android TV is still shipping on smart TVs, Google introduced a new “Google TV” interface on its new Chromecast with Google TV released in the fall of 2020. This new interface should eventually replace the old Android TV interface on all devices, though there’s no ETA for that yet.
Google launched a more affordable version of its Chromecast with Google TV last year, but the company also continues to work with TV manufacturers to push Android TV and Google TV on more new devices. “We’ve got new Google TV devices launching this year including the TCL Q-Series TV and the Hisense ULED TVs, Laser TVs and Laser Cinema lineups,” the company announced yesterday.
The smart TV market is currently quite competitive right now. LG and Samsung are continuing to develop their own TV software named webOS and Tizen, respectively. Apple isn’t manufacturing its own TVs yet, but it released a slightly cheaper Apple TV 4K in October, which now starts at $129 for the Wi-Fi-only model
Just like Google, Amazon and Roku continue to manufacture cheap HDMI sticks to use on all TVs, and they’re also pushing TV manufacturers to use their own smart TV platforms. After Amazon launched its own Fire TV smart TVs, Roku also announced earlier this week that the first Roku-branded smart TVs will be released in Spring 2023 in the US.