Samsung TV App Downloads Top 5 Million

YouTube is most popular app in the U.S. and worldwide

By George Winslow -- Broadcasting & Cable, 5/23/2011 7:46:51 PM

In a move that highlights the growing consumer embrace of connected TVs, Samsung Electronics Co. has announced that the Samsung Apps store has seen more than 5 million downloads of TV apps worldwide since it was launch in February for 2010 and that consumers are now downloading about 25,000 TV apps a day.

YouTube tops the rankings globally as well as U.S. and UK for the most popular app.

Perhaps even more important than the 5 million milestone is the rapid growth in downloads. Two million apps were downloaded between the February 2010 launch and January of 2011 but it took just four more months to cross five million.

The Consumer Electronics Association expects that manufacturers will ship about 5.2 million connected TVs in the U.S. this year-a figure it expects to hit 16.4 million in 2014--and Samsung has been particularly aggressive in forging ties to developers and content providers as a way of differentiating its products.

"The success of our developers and the rate at which our downloads have increased are evidence that this new medium of apps designed specifically for the television experience is taking hold in the consumer living room," noted Kevin Kyungshik Lee, vice president, Visual Display Business, Samsung Electronics, in a statement. "These apps are one of the cornerstones of the overall Smart TV experience and they will continue to grow both in number and the diversity of experiences."

Besides YouTube, top apps in the U.S. were Blockbuster (#2), AccuWeather (#3), Google Maps (4) and USA Today (#5).

The Samsung Apps store currently has over 550 applications designed specifically for the TV, with gaming, video and information apps accounting for nearly 60 percent of them.