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

A ‘move-in-ready' house now means smart home devices are inside

For a home or apartments to be move-in-ready today, smart devices of all kinds need to be part of the space for 25 percent of U.S. broadband customers, according to new research from Parks Associates....

Amazon Opens Prime Video To Monthly Memberships In A Challenge To Netflix

Surveys by consulting firm Parks Associates found that many people who signed up for Prime Video's free 30-day trial were not converting to subscribers. About 34% of people surveyed by Parks Associ...

Netflix Leads OTT Service In The US

Parks Associates has released its updated top 10 list for subscription over-the-top (OTT) video services, based on number of subscribers. Netflix retained its top position while services like Sling TV...

Two out of five U.S. homes want to swap the remote for their voice

So notes a recent report from Parks Associates, which found that 43 percent of all broadband households in the U.S. that use — or plan to use — a smart TV or streaming media player want to be able to...