Amazon.com Inc. introduced its first line of televisions on Thursday, escalating competition with Roku Inc. and Google to control the market for in-home entertainment.
Amazon will offer two lines of TVs: the Omni, which will start at $409.99, and a model called the 4-Series that will cost $369.99 and up. The TVs will go on sale in October and range from 43 inches to 75 inches.
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Amazon is already one of the largest players in the connected-TV industry, thanks to Fire TV, which customers use to watch Netflix, play music or play video games. The company has sold more than 100 million Fire TV devices, including sticks that connect to TVs from companies like Toshiba and Pioneer that have Amazon software inside.
Connected TVs are one of the fastest-growing entertainment categories. Advertising on the devices will surpass $4 billion this year, according to EMarketer Inc. Amazon is competing with Roku, Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Samsung Electronics Co. and Apple Inc. to be the dominant player, bolstering its booming advertising business along the way.
