If YouTube isn’t doing so well, so isn’t Roku, the company that makes digital media players for streaming television, movies, music, and even some games. In addition to those devices, some Smart TVs come with Roku software built-in. Regardless of which Roku device you have, they all offer instant access to the largest on-demand media service providers.
Roku, which went public in mid-2017, released its fourth-quarter 2022 results last week. Roku reports fourth-quarter revenue of $867.1 million, up from an estimate of $801.7 million. , and EBITDA, or the gross operating margin, went from a negative 95.2 million dollars to a positive 86.7 million.
Driving Roku’s revenue growth was its platform business, which increased revenue 5% during the quarter to $731.3 million. The platform segment includes the company’s advertising and subscription/transactional businesses. 2022 closed with 70 million active accounts, up 16% year-over-year, after adding 10 million net accounts. That is, net of those who have cancelled. For the full year, streaming hours on Roku hit a record 87.4 billion hours, up 19%. In the fourth quarter, Roku user streaming hours reached an all-time high of 23.9 billion hours, again up 23% year-over-year.
According to a survey conducted globally, 72% of streaming customers reported feeling frustrated finding something to watch, and 25% took more than 10 minutes to choose something. That’s the secret to Roku’s success. In fact, tvOS’ power as guardian of the living room is brought to full display in ROKU’s earnings release, helping you find what to watch” In the fourth quarter, streaming hours coming from the home screen menu grew twice as fast as total hours of the platform. In short, in the era of the abundance of video content, helping people in the selection of content works. Better not to forget this, not only with regard to videos.
