The hottest stock in streaming media got a little more incendiary Tuesday, following reports that Roku-powered smart TVs sold briskly during Amazon’s “Prime Day” retail event.
Amazon held its annual sales event on July 8. The online retail giant reported that Roku-powered smart TVs and streaming devices were among the best-selling electronic items during the two-day sale. Amazon said $99, 32-inch Roku-enabled TCL TVs were the third best-selling televisions during Prime Day.
Roku makes very little money from these licensing deals, particularly on a $99 TV. But the proliferation of its OTT ecosystem—and its ability to put AVOD outlet The Roku Channel into more living rooms—is what counts.
Related: Roku Will Soon Have 70% More OTT Devices in Global Streaming Market Than Next Closest Competitor
With Roku reporting a 40% uptick to 29 million regular users in Q1, and revenue growing 51% year over year, its stock has already more than tripled since the beginning of 2019.
And on Tuesday, boutique equity research firm CrispIdea became the latest Wall Street thought leader to upgrade Roku stock to “buy.”
"The market thinks [Roku's] a beneficiary of Prime Day," said Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter told Yahoo. "The more televisions sold with Roku operating systems, the greater their opportunity to sell ads, or subscriptions to content providers like Netflix," he said.
