Anthony Wood

If Roku’s third quarter earnings call could be distilled into a single phrase, it would be “early days.” (With “bullish” as a runner-up, perhaps.)

Roku’s video advertising business has really been booming lately, as CEO Anthony Wood shared on a call with investors Thursday evening.

Roku acquired subscription streaming service Frndly TV for $185M and reported Q1 revenue over $1 billion. But its Q2 outlook missed expectations due to tariffs dinging manufacturing revenue.

Roku reported $4.1 billion in revenue for 2024, an 18% jump year over year. Its platform business in particular, which includes ad sales and streaming distribution, reached $3.5 billion last year, also an 18% jump compared to 2023 (or 15% excluding political ad revenue).

Roku announced an integration with The Trade Desk’s UID 2.0 identifier to attract new buyers and “increase monetization per account” by improving ad targeting, said Roku CEO Anthony Wood during the company’s earnings call Thursday.

If anyone asks what the main theme of Roku’s Q1 earnings call was on Thursday, say: “programmatic.”

Roku had a promising Q4, with steady revenue growth thanks to more active accounts and new ad offerings. But ARPU was down, and investors had a skeptical response.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. Board Games The LG Ads board of directors has three new members. Or, more accurately, two previous board members – Alphonso co-founders Ashish Chordia and Lampros Kalampoukas, who were fired as part of an orchestrated corporate coup in late December 2022 – have […]

Roku is starting to bounce back from a slump in ad sales growth thanks to new ad inventory, more programmatic availability and improving economic conditions.

Roku’s mid-year finances reveal mixed signals. Active accounts are up, but the ongoing writers’ strike is causing advertising growth to stagnate.

Roku defends its decision to start making its own smart TVs while TV manufacturers go toe-to-toe for market share.

Considering Roku decided to start manufacturing smart TVs in the middle of a looming recession, its Q4 results probably could have been worse.

Here’s today’s AdExchanger.com news round-up… Want it by email? Sign up here. The Go-To-Marketer Plan Marketers are getting thirstier, The Wall Street Journal reports. That isn’t new. (This is the industry that gave birth to Shingy and Gary Vaynerchuk.) But there’s been a marked uptick in CMOs using brand-building and content-writing services to try and climb […]

Video streaming giant Roku’s revenue soared 73% YOY to $452 million in Q3. Roku’s Platform business – which includes advertising and content distribution revenue – saw its strongest quarter in the segment’s history, with revenue leaping 78% YOY to $319 million. Roku attributed the record Platform numbers to strong growth in advertising as brands embraced […]

Roku did way better than the TV ad market at large in Q2, despite a major pullback in ad spend from brands across the board. Platform revenues, which include advertising, grew 46% YoY to $244.8 million, Roku said Wednesday during its Q2 earnings call. Overall, revenues increased 42% YoY to $356 million in the quarter. […]

Roku’s platform business is growing like a weed. Platform revenues, which include ad sales, increased 78% year over year in 2019 to $740 million, the company said Thursday in its Q4 2019 earnings report. Platform revenue accounted for 63% of Roku’s total annual revenue, which grew 52% year over year to $1.1 billion. In Q4, […]

Roku is sitting in a nice position as the streaming wars kick off. The OTT platform reported on Wednesday net revenue growth of 50% year over year to $260.9 million in Q3. And it will benefit from the proliferation of both ad-supported and non-ad-supported services. More high-profile streaming services will drive more engagement on Roku, […]

Roku is reaping the benefits of cord cutting. The connected TV platform’s revenues grew 51% year over year in Q1 to $206.7 million. Roku surpassed Samsung as the number one smart TV OS in the United States, where more than one in three smart TVs sold had Roku software embedded, said CEO Anthony Wood on […]

Roku’s platform business, which encompasses advertising and subscription revenue, grew 96% in Q2 to $90 million. Roku’s ad business now makes up two-thirds of platform revenue, Scott Rosenberg, VP of advertising and audience development, said Wednesday during the company’s Q2 earnings call. Rosenberg didn’t break out a figure for ad revenue but said a majority […]