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.
The promotions have continued since then. Currently, customers who prepay for four months get a free Apple TV 4K in return. One month of prepay earns customers a Roku streaming stick. And new customer...
In their Tuesday webinar on advancements in smart home technology, Sean Wargo, senior director of marketing intelligence at AVIXA and Brad Russell, research director, connected home, at Parks Associat...
In their Tuesday webinar on advancements in smart home technology, Sean Wargo, senior director of marketing intelligence at AVIXA and Brad Russell, research director, connected home, at Parks Associat...
Its Sling TV service also ranks among the top 10 most popular cord-cutting video services, according to market researcher Parks Associates. It puts the company ahead of direct rivals such as AT&T’s Di...
