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

The Top Retailers in Home Entertainment 2019: The Golden 12

Amazon also offers transactional (both purchase and rental) and subscription streaming through Amazon Prime Video, continuing to forge partnerships with cablers such as Cox, which added the service to...

Coming in 2022: A big leap in smart home technology

Most consumers haven't caught IoT fever yet. "New research from Parks Associates indicates that just 36% of US broadband households have one smart home device, a percentage that decreases if all house...

Samsung’s Peacock Standoff with NBCUniversal Shows Power of TV Makers

Smart TVs are gradually becoming more common than separate streaming devices. As of the third quarter last year, 56% of households with broadband owned smart TVs while 43% owned streaming devices, acc...

One Bot To Rule Them All? Not Likely

In order for a virtual helpmate to run your life, it needs to engage with the providers of all the services you rely on, from your calendar app to your Uber ride. Those providers must either partner w...