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

The Simple Reason Why I Won't Buy Roku Inc.

Roku (NASDAQ:ROKU) went public on Sep. 28, its stock surging nearly 70% from its IPO price of $14 per share. The stock hit almost $30 the following day, but subsequently pulled back to the low $20s....

Cable Boxes Suck. One Day They’ll Die. Until Then We Have to Fix Them.

“Nothing in our proposal would prevent Comcast or TimeWarner from what they’re doing with Roku or Apple TV, or how they decide to pick what devices to share their app with,” says an FCC spokeswoman....

Roku Is Taking the Right Steps

Last August, market analysts at Parks Associates found that more than any other streaming media device -- including those from Amazon, Apple, and Google -- Roku was the leading brand and had increased...

Roku Stock Jumps After a Blowout Holiday Quarter

The Roku Channel is also turning heads. The company's ad-supported channel was named one of the three best ad-based over-the-top services among U.S. broadband households according to Parks Associates,...