Player Penetration By The Numbers

Flash and DivX
Though purists will point out that Macromedia’s Flash Player isn’t really a player—technically, it’s a plug-in—its near-ubiquity can’t be ignored. "93.5% of desktops with an Internet connection have Flash Player 6, the first version that serves video," says Chris Hock, director of product marketing at Macromedia. This percentage refers to all OSes, but "the specific number for Flash Player 6 is a U.S. figure," says Hock, based on a representative sample. "It’s a pretty similar number for Canada, Europe, and Asia." For all versions of the Flash Player, the penetration rate increases to 98%. Besides being a plug-in rather than a player, the Flash Player differs from the others in this article in that it is completely customizable. This mutability is a plus for customers who really want to control the look and feel of their video, but it’s a negative for others, as creating a custom player does require someone with Flash expertise. Flash MX 2004 solves the problem of player development for non-technical types by including a set of prebuilt player templates.

Then there’s DivXNetworks, which has pursued the consumer electronics market as vigorously as it has the desktop base by licensing its player to set-top DVD player manufacturers like KiSS, Philips, and JVC, as well as to software and hardware manufacturers like Roxio, Plextor, and ArcSoft. Such a diverse approach to the market, and one that goes far beyond streaming, makes it hard to get a handle on the DivX player’s penetration, but DivX chief marketing officer and managing director Kevin Hell says there have been 120 million downloads of the player from the company’s Web site alone. Additionally, DivX recently announced its partnership with Italian telecommunications company Wind to deliver on-demand DivX content to more than 200,000 broadband subscribers in Europe, Hell says.

The Chinese Connection
The area of the world with the most potential for growth can be found in its most populous country. "China is a really hot marketplace," says Real’s Foreman, "because most of the users aren’t just upgrading, they’re new player downloads." Combine China’s burgeoning middle class and their desire to get onto the Internet with a government that can move unilaterally to adopt and encourage the adoption of whatever OS it chooses, and you can see how China represents the most significant market left for media players to penetrate.

In the end, does it really matter when or if any specific media player (or codec) will become the dominant standard? For those wanting to deliver content, it doesn’t seem so, especially since the big three (Microsoft, Apple, and Real) have made efforts to incorporate more and more codecs for video playback. For consumers, as long as they can enjoy the content they want, at a high enough quality, when and where they want it, they won’t care. This is the ultimate goal, regardless of what codec you use to deliver your content.