ROKU’S ACTIVE USER COUNT SPIKES TO 51.2 MILLION DURING Q4 2020

Roku Inc reported quarterly revenue above market expectations on Thursday, thanks to an influx of cord-cutting subscribers dropping their cable packages for streaming services. The figures totaled 51 million active accounts during Q4. 

For Q4, Roku added another 5.2 million active accounts, bringing the company to 51.2 million overall by the end of 2020. The company had started the year with a shade less than 37 million active accounts. “To put our scale in perspective, Roku’s U.S. active account base is now more than twice the number of the U.S. video subscribers of the biggest cable company,” Roku stated in a letter to shareholders.

Roku added 14.3 million active accounts in the year. Sales of its devices, which connect televisions to streaming services, increased by 18% to $178.7 million in the fourth quarter. Platform revenue, which includes ad sales, surged 81% to $471.2 million, beating estimates of $416.07 million. Total net revenue rose 58% to $649.9 million in the fourth quarter, beating analysts’ average estimate of $617.25 million, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.

The growth results from original releases on its app, Roku Channel, and subscriber boosts to the streaming platforms it hosts including Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+ have not only bolstered its device sales, but also its ad income. During Q4, Roku struck a distribution deal with HBO Max, bringing the service onboard just days before “Wonder Woman 1984” debuted on Christmas. 

The amount of time viewers spent streaming also continued to increase in Q4, with Roku reporting its users watched 17 billion hours of content between October and December, a significant increase from the 14.8 billion hours viewers watched during Q3. Roku’s streaming hours average out to each active account streaming for 3.8 hours each day. For the first quarter, the company expects total revenue between $478 million and $493 million, while analysts expect it to be $461.89 million.