Roku subscribers and earnings

Roku Channel

Q1 2020 | Q4 2019 | Q3 2019 | Q2 2019 | Q1 2019

Q1 2020 (May 7, 2020)

Roku today announced its earnings for the first quarter of 2020. Here's what you need to know:

  • Roku added 2.9 million active accounts in the first quarter, for 39.8 million total.
  • That's up from 29.1 million active accounts year over year.
  • Streaming hours increased to a record 13.2 billion, up from 8.9 billion year over year.
  • Average revenue per user increased to $24.35, up 28 percent year over year.
  • Both platform revenue and player revenue were down for the quarter, but up year over year.

Q4 2019 (Feb. 13, 2020)

Roku today announced its fourth quarter earnings for 2019. Here's what you need to know:

From the earnings report:

  • Roku finished the year up 9.8 million active accounts for a total of 36.9 million.
  • It added 4.6 million active accounts in the fourth quarter.
  • Nearly one in three smart TVs sold in the United States is a Roku TV.
  • Roku predicts that "roughly half of all U.S. TV households" will have either cut the cord or never had traditional TV by 2024.
  • The Roku Channel — Roku's own ad-supported channel — reached an estimated 56 million viewers in 2019.
  • Look for even more free content to hit The Roku Channel this year.

Or, as CEO and founder Anthony Wood and CFO Steve Louden conclude in their letter:

While 2019 was a tipping point in commitments to streaming, the full force of change is still to come. Roku is well positioned for the new streaming decade as we continue to differentiate our platform, deliver strong growth, execute our strategic plans and bring together even more consumers, TV brands, content providers and advertisers. We are more excited than ever about providing streaming solutions to consumers and the TV ecosystem around the world.

Roku Q3 2019 earnings (Nov. 6, 2019)

Today today announced its third-quarter earnings for 2019. Here's what you need to know:

  • Roku now has some 32.3 million active accounts, up 1.7 million from Q2.
  • Internal research says "roughly 50 percent" of cord-cutters in the United States are Roku customers.
  • Impressions of monetized advertisements more than doubled year over year.
  • Roku owners streamed some 10.3 billion hours in the three months ending Oct. 1.
  • Net revenue hit $260.9 million and was up 50 percent year over year.
  • Sales of Roku Players was down a bit from the pervious quarter at $81.6 million in revenue, but still up 11 percent year over year.
  • Roku finished its third straight quarter with an operating loss (it made $5.5 million in Q4 2018), and it's anticipating a net loss of between $17 million and $22 million in Q4.

Roku Q2 2019 earnings (Aug. 7, 2019)

Roku today announced its second-quarter earnings for 2019. Here's what you need to know:

  • Roku now has 30.5 million active accounts
  • It added 1.4 million net accounts in the quarter
  • Viewers streamed 500 million more hours in Q2, for 9.4 billion hours total
  • That's up from 5.5 billion hours in Q2 2018
  • Roku says it sold more than one-third of all smart TVs in the U.S. in the first half of 2019
  • Roku says sales of its players were up 36 percent for the quarter — its highest growth in the last nine quarters
  • The company raised its total-year forecast and is now expecting more than $1 billion in revenue for the year
  • But it says its outlook doesn't take into account the possibility of new tariffs on foreign-sourced products

Roku Q1 2019 earnings (May 8, 2019)

Roku today announced its first-quarter earnings for 2019. Here's what you need to know:

  • Net revenue was up year over year to $206.7 million.
  • Roku added 2.0 million active accounts from Q4 2018 and now has a total of 29.1 million.
  • A single user is worth more for Roku, up $1.11 from Q4 to $19.06.
  • Roku now says more than one in three smart TVs sold in the U.S. in the first quarter. (That's up from one in four.)
  • Sales of Roku players (as in the sticks and boxes) were up 21 percent year over year for the first quarter.
  • Roku users stream an average of 3.5 hours a day.
  • Platform revenue increased 79 percent year over year.

Roku Q4 2018 earnings and year-end recap

Roku on Feb. 21, 2019, released its Q4 2018 earnings. Here's what you need to know:

  • Roku added 7.8 million active accounts in 2018. It added 3.3 million of those in Q4.
  • It now has more than 27.1 million total active accounts.
  • Roku expects to hit $1 billion in revenue in 2019 by increasing monetization per user and scaling the number of households using the Roku platform.
  • The number of hours streamed continues to climb, from 6.2 billion in Q3, to 7.3 billion in Q4.
  • Monetized ad impressions more than doubled in 2018.
  • Total net revenue was up 45 percent year over year, to $742.5 million.
  • Roku players (as in boxes and sticks) were up 30 percent year over year, with the best growth from those that cost less than $50.

Roku Q4 2018 preliminary earnings (Jan. 7, 2019)

Roku isn't due to announce its earnings for the fourth quarter until February, but today it released some preliminary data to whet our (and mostly, investors') appetites.

Here's what you need to know:

  • Roku now has more than 27 million active accounts, up 40 percent year over year, and a more-than 4 million-account increase from Q3 2018.
  • Streaming hours in the fourth quarter — that is, how much all those accounts are actually watching — were at 7.3 billion hours for Q4, up about 68 percent year over year. (And that's up from 6.2 billion hours in the third quarter.)
  • Total streaming hours for 2018 are about 24 billion hours, up 61 percent from 2017.

The fourth quarter of the year, of course, also is where we find Black Friday and Christmas holiday sales.

The preliminary numbers were received well by Wall Street, which sent Roku's stock up slightly more than 25 percentage points, to 42.18.

Roku Q3 2018 earnings

Roku today announced its Q3 2018 earnings. Here's what you need to know:

  • Roku now has 23.8 million active accounts, up 1.8 million from Q2, some 7.1 million more than Q3 2017.
  • Net revenue was up 39 percent year over year to $173.4 million.
  • Gross profit was up 58 percent year over year to $79 million.
  • More than half of the new accounts were from "licensed sources," which basically means Roku TVs. (Roku still says a quarter of all new smart TVs sold is running Roku.)

Wall Street expected more, giving Roku's stock a hit, but we're not Wall Street. Roku also raised its expectations a bit for Q4, though it's still anticipating a net loss.

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