Providing market intelligence for more than 35 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

Netflix Leads OTT Service In The US

Parks Associates has released its updated top 10 list for subscription over-the-top (OTT) video services, based on number of subscribers. Netflix retained its top position while services like Sling TV...

Summer vacation’s coming, is your home prepared to be left alone?

The majority of U.S. households with broadband connections believe a device that would notify them about smoke and fire alarms is "highly appealing," according to research firm Parks Associates, which...

Amazon Takes On Netflix With $8.99 Monthly Video Streaming Service

Netflix is by far the biggest online streaming video service. Last week, researcher Parks Associates estimated that about half of all U.S. households with a broadband Internet connection subscribed to...

Amazon is driving more transaction-based revenue for TV networks and studios

Meanwhile, Amazon’s Fire TV stick, which competes with Apple TV and Roku as one of the top connected TV devices, also continues to gain market share, which has likely helped drive more people to watch...