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

Comcast Rolls Out Its Own Connected-Home Products

Even among U.S. households with broadband service, newly released market research from Parks Associates found that less than 30 percent of respondents were familiar with where to buy smart-home produc...

Password Sharing Not the Biggest Problem for SVOD Services, Study Says

For movie and TV studios, the big bugaboo is people illegally copying or downloading their IP. For SVOD services, it’s another form of piracy – password sharing, which cost companies $500 million worl...

Smart Home Service

Automated smart home systems are a growing trend among mainstream consumers; in fact, according to Parks Associates, 48 percent of U.S. broadband households intend to buy at least one smart home devic...

Video Entertainment Spending Drops in the US

According to the research firm, there has also been a decline in multiplatform usage among households, as use rates on individual screens declined despite the fact that overall video viewing has held...