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 Glory Days of Sharing Passwords to Stream Free TV May Soon End

According to Bloomberg, industry research firm Parks Associates found that one-third of internet users stream cable TV shows without paying for access, which, the firm estimates, costs cable companies...

Doorbell live-cams fight back against porch pirates filching packages

For years, home security has been relatively expensive, with homeowners paying an average of $44 per month for a professionally installed and monitored system. About 22 percent of U.S. homeowners subs...

Doorbell live-cams fight back against porch pirates filching packages

For years, home security has been relatively expensive, with homeowners paying an average of $44 per month for a professionally installed and monitored system. About 22 percent of U.S. homeowners subs...

Nest, now a Google subsidiary, starts selling video doorbell

Nest’s doorbell, called Nest Hello, marks its first entry into the $334 million video doorbell market, according to 2017 data from research firm Parks Associates. Last month, Amazon announced it had p...