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

COVID-19 Spurred AVOD's Growth Amid Flurry of Big Media Plays, Parks Event Told

Ad-supported VOD services are playing a pivotal role in delivering a relaxed, “tension-free” viewing experience during the pandemic's “troubling times,” Parks Associates analyst Steve Nason told his c...

Is There Still Time For 2016 To Be The Year Of The Smart Home? Maybe

When it comes to predicting when the smart home will become a mainstream phenomenon, we’ve repeatedly missed the mark. Some of us have enjoyed the benefits—and dealt with the few headaches—of living i...

Smart home market still small in Europe, but with many players pushing it forward adoption will rise

Other barriers for increasing adoption are concerns about security and privacy. With more reports in mainstream media about smart home devices being hacked, the public awareness of this issue has incr...

Ad Blocking Cost Industry USD 41 Bln In 2015

US broadband households watch an average of 3.8 hours of internet video on TV screens each week, accounting for 20 percent of all video viewed on this device, according to research by Parks Associates...