Connected TV ownership continues to surge, with 80% of U.S. TV households now having at least one CTV, according to new research from Leichtman Research Group. The penetration of CTVs has grown steadily from 24% in 2010 to 57% in 2015 to 74% in 2018.

The mean ownership is 4.1 CTV devices per CTV household, translating into approximately 400 million CTVs currently deployed, according to LRG, up 60% from 250 million in 2016. 64% of CTV households said they had 3 or more CTVs.

Beyond the penetration growth, the integration of CTVs into our daily lives is even more noteworthy. LRG found that 40% of U.S. TV households now consume content on their CTV on a daily basis. That’s up from 29% in 2018, 12% in 2015 and just 1% in 2010. The explosion of content and services available on CTVs and cord-cutting has shifted viewers’ behaviors and driven the daily usage numbers.

No surprise, usage follows age; 55% of 18-34 year olds use their CTVs daily while 48% of 35-54 year olds and 18% of 55+ year olds do so.

Standalone CTV devices (e.g. Roku, Fire TV, Chromecast, Apple TV, etc.) drew the highest daily usage at 25%, followed by smart TVs (20%), game consoles (11%) and Blu-ray players (3%).

The surge in CTVs and daily usage are part of a virtuous cycle which has driven the breadth and depth of SVOD and AVOD services, as well as the spike in CTV ad impressions and spending. As I’ve written often in the past, standalone CTVs’ low price points, coupled with ease of set up and widespread WiFi have turned CTVs into a mainstream consumer product, as the LRG data underscores. The pandemic is further accelerating the shift to CTVs, especially with live sports still mainly on hold.

The research comes from LRG’s Connected and 4K TVs 2020 study of approximately 2,000 U.S. TV households.