Roku falls short of revenue expectations despite hitting 60.1m users
Roku has fallen short of revenue expectations in the fourth quarter despite its active user base hitting 60.1 million and it delivering a commensurate jump in total streaming hours from 18bn to 19.5bn.
Roku falls short of revenue expectations despite hitting 60m users
The modest growth means Roku is now forecasting first quarter 2022 revenues of $720m – a figure unlikely to satiate Wall Street, which had been banking on total revenues of $865.3m.
Conceding that its performance is not as strong as it would wish, Roku blamed its underperformance on supply chain issues impacting the US television market, which have suppressed sales below pre-pandemic levels.
Roku is far from optimistic that this situation will correct itself any time soon, with chief exec Anthony Wood and chief financial officer Steve Louden warning shareholders that anemic account growth is here to stay in 2022.
Roku is reliant on partnerships with television manufacturers as well as set-top boxes and dongles to distribute its content, leading to speculation that it may look to cut out the middleman by manufacturing its own TVs – something Louden rejects.
In an attempt to bootstrap revenues, Roku has launched a dedicated app on the Shopify e-commerce platform enabling small and medium-sized businesses to build ad campaigns for its TV streaming services.
Roku’s lackluster performance is at odds with its’s own research positioning the 2020s as a ’golden decade’ for streaming growth.
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