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

Parks: Cord-cutting Up

Cord-cutter consumer research from Parks Associates shows the percentage of US broadband households that use only antennas to receive TV has steadily increased since 2013 to reach 15 per cent. The fir...

19% US Households Cancel OTT

According to market research firm Parks Associates’ OTT Video Market Tracker service, the churn rate for OTT video services is 19 per cent of US broadband households, indicating roughly one in five ho...

29% US Consumers Get News From Social Media

Consumer research from market research and consulting company Parks Associates reveals 29 per cent of US broadband households get most of their news from social media platforms such as Facebook and Tw...

Connected CE purchases show steady decline since 2008

“Today, consumers are satisfied with many of their existing products, provided they are working well,” said Tricia Parks, President, CEO, and Founder, Parks Associates. “Many product categories are fo...