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

Amazon to Open New Front in Streaming Wars

It would also open another front in a competitive streaming platform battle that pits Amazon's Fire TV against Roku Inc. , Google (Nasdaq: GOOG)'s Android TV and Apple TV (tvOS), as well as smart TV-f...

Pirates Poised to Pluck More From Pay-TV, OTT

"Piracy is a complex issue that cannot be addressed with a single solution or by targeting a single use case," said Brett Sappington, senior research director and principal analyst at Parks Associates...

Disney+ Could Blow Away Subscriber Forecasts

Brett Sappington, senior director of research at Parks Associates, agrees that Disney+ has the best shot at being wildly successful, and that securing fewer than 23 million Disney+ subs globally by 20...

TV antennas are making a comeback in the age of digital streaming

Billy Nayden, an analyst for the research firm Parks Associates, said the TV antenna resurgence is a byproduct of consumers feeling overwhelmed by the many viewing platforms available. Some are even s...