While Roku remains the market leader, Fire TV is currently the fastest growing connected TV (CTV) app store in the world based on app inventory growth. Here’s a full rundown on Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, and Google TV for the month of October.
Welcome to the October 2023 edition of our monthly CTV app store roundup! Each month, we cover trends and insights from the top CTV app stores. Come here for monthly updates on inventory growth, leading categories, top apps, and more!
Here’s where things stand this month (click the links to jump to the corresponding section):
- Roku leads the way with app inventory, but is losing ground in new publisher growth
- Fire TV is the fastest growing CTV app store over the past two months
- The top categories by CTV store
- Netflix and YouTube dominate the Roku Channel Store
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Roku leads the way with app inventory, but is losing ground in new publisher growth
The Roku Channel Store is the largest, most popular CTV app store on the market. While its user-base is predominantly in the United States and North America, it’s also beginning to establish a foothold in Europe (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom) and Australia. Indeed, 19,819 (out of 39,119) Roku apps are currently available in Europe, while 9,277 can be accessed in Australia.
In any case, looking at month-over-month growth, Roku’s inventory grew from 38,783 CTV apps in September to 39,119 CTV apps in October. In addition, as of October, 10,380 publishers have released Roku apps, up from 10,315 in September.
Here’s how the rest of the top CTV stores shake out:
- Apple TV tvOS App Store has 23,481 apps from 15,656 publishers. (Last month: 23,233 apps, 15,466 publishers)
- Amazon Fire TV has 20,885 apps from 8,347 publishers. (Last month: 20,239 apps, 8,183 publishers)
- Google TV has 8,362 apps from 5,604 publishers. (Last month: 8,307 apps, 5,537 publishers)
It’s also worth pointing out that, while Roku has the fastest growing app inventory, it’s fallen behind in terms of new publishers. Just 65 new publishers added apps to the Channel Store in October, compared to 190 for Apple TV, 164 for Fire TV, and 67 for Google TV.
Fire TV is the fastest growing CTV app store over the past two months
Fire TV has had an uneven year. It started the summer off strong, adding roughly 468 new apps in July. However, one month later, Fire TV’s growth took a nosedive, adding just 308 new apps.
Well, things are looking pretty good again! Indeed, Fire TV has added 1,292 new apps over the past two months, including 646 between September and October. Not too shabby.
As you can see above, While Fire TV led the way in October, Roku TV (336 new apps) and Apple TV (248 new apps) also put up solid growth numbers.
The top categories by CTV store
‘Faith-Based’ continues to be Roku’s most robust category, while ‘Video Players & Editors’ has overtaken ‘Tools’ on Google TV.
Below, you’ll find the top three categories for each of the top CTV app stores…
The Top Roku Categories
As mentioned above, the largest category on Roku is ‘Faith-Based’ (10,172 apps), with ‘Movies & TV’ (5,829) and ‘Apps’ (2,536) rounding out the top three.
The Top Apple TV Categories
On Apple TV, ‘Education’ leads the way, with 6,141 apps. Then come ‘Entertainment’ (4,280) and ‘Lifestyle’ (3,172).
The Top Fire TV Categories
‘Lifestyle’, meanwhile, takes the top spot on Fire TV, with 3,171 apps. It’s followed by ‘Movies & TV’ (3,016) and ‘Games’ (1,514).
The Top Google TV Categories
Finally, on Google TV, ‘Entertainment’ is far and away the top category, with 3,409 apps. The Top three is rounded out by ‘Music & Audio’ (636) and ‘Video Players & Editors’ (545), which has overtaken ‘Tools’ (535) for the number three spot.
It’s worth stopping for a moment here to point out that Google TV appears to be struggling when compared to the Roku, Apple, and Amazon offerings. It added just 55 new apps in the month of October and many categories (Such as ‘Music & Audio’ and ‘Tools’) are beginning to shrink. Something to keep an eye on going forward…
Netflix and YouTube dominate the Roku Channel Store
In any case, let’s wrap up by looking at the most popular Roku apps. We looked at the number of reviews received by each app to guesstimate their popularity.
Netflix is solidly in the lead, with 3,754,796 total reviews, up from 3,742,385 in September. The rest of the top five includes household names, like YouTube (2,103,713 reviews), Hulu (1,035,584), Prime Video (919,789), and the Roku Channel (494,384).
Final Thoughts
The CTV market is growing at a solid clip. While Roku appears to be falling behind a bit, this is likely due to the fact that they already have the largest offering on the market.
Still, the two platforms to keep an eye on going forward are Fire TV and Google TV — but for different reasons. While Fire TV has flourished over the past two months, Google TV has languished.
In any event, as the CTV industry continues to evolve, it will be interesting to monitor how these trends shift and shape the future of television. So, be sure to tune in next month for the latest CTV growth trends!
