Providing market intelligence for more than 35 years

In The News

Roku Bolsters Its Strongest Business With a $150 Million Acquisition

The bears once believed Roku's hardware business would be crushed by rivals like Alphabet's Google Chromecast, Amazon's (NASDAQ:AMZN) Fire TV, and Apple TV. Yet Roku consistently remains the most popular streaming device maker in the U.S., according to Parks Associates' latest numbers.

Between the first quarters of 2017 and 2019, Roku's domestic share of streaming devices rose from 37% to 39%, while its closest rival, Amazon, grew its share from 24% to 30%. However, the gross margin of Roku's player business also plunged from 22.2% to 5.5% between the second quarters of 2018 and 2019 as it sold cheaper devices to maintain that lead. It expects that figure to remain in the low single-digits for the rest of the year.

From the article "Roku Bolsters Its Strongest Business With a $150 Million Acquisition" by Leo Sun.

Previously In The News

Why Steve Jobs' Grand Vision for a Breakthrough Apple Product Remains Unfulfilled

While the HomePod is new and the actual speaker appears to be of a much higher fidelity than its rivals, it's not a game-changer. "Apple is in a position that they haven't often been in over the pa...

Operators Should Embrace SVOD to Attract Next Generation

Parks Associates senior director of research Brett Sappington noted that most users of SVOD services like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu are younger (aged 25-34) and have been in their homes less than 12 mo...

Mobile Video Viewing Spiked 55% from 2015-2017, Research Group Says

The shift has come, Parks said, as consumers watch less live video on traditional TVs—60% of all video watching took place on TVs in 2012 vs. just 44% at the end of 2017. Parks’ report is somewhat...

Hulu Adds (Mostly) Ad-Free Subscription Service

Hulu CEO Mike Hopkins chalked up the exceptions to rights held by studios on select series. “They have other commitments that they couldn’t free them up for a complete commercial-free offering,” he sa...