Providing Market Intelligence for 40 Years

In The News

Wall Street isn’t sure Roku can lead cord cutters to the promised land

One of the secrets of Roku's success has been its expansion beyond its roots as a set top box maker (a term the company tries to avoid). To do this, Roku CEO Anthony Wood built a loyal customer following by moving the company away from only selling its own boxes, instead now licensing its software to TV makers, so they can ship screens with the company's streaming TV platform built-in. This is a much higher margin business than selling streaming hardware, and almost one-third of so-called smart TVs sold last year included Roku's software.

Roku has also developed and licensed streaming programming of its own, backed by advertising. The Roku Channel, available on all its platforms, was 2019's most popular ad-backed streaming channel, ahead of rivals Pluto TV and Crackle, according to market research firm Parks Associates. That's another business that yields higher margins than producing set top boxes.

From the article "Wall Street isn’t sure Roku can lead cord cutters to the promised land" by Aaron Pressman.

Previously In The News

Antennas Get A Good Reception Again

In fact, since 2013, the percentage of broadband households in the nation using only antennas to watch linear TV has jumped from 9 percent to 15 percent, according to data released this month by Parks...

Apple Looks To Expand Healthcare Presence

“Apple has been enormously successful with its technology and brand power among consumers, so Apple’s entry into the healthcare industry is at least beneficial in raising consumer awareness of excitin...

More Americans Are Getting Familiar With Virtual Reality Technology

Getting people to know about virtual reality is a critical step for the mainstream adoption. A similar survey by Parks Associates reveals virtual reality demonstrations play a key role to convince...

Alexa Poised To Play A Bigger Role This Amazon Prime Day

In a press release, Amazon singles out “voice shopping” more “Alexa-exclusive deals” for members with an Amazon Echo, Echo Dot, Echo Show, Amazon Tap, compatible Fire TV or Fire tablet. “Amazon is...