Roku reported a 50% year-over-year rise in third quarter revenue to $260.9 million, as it continues to experience huge advertising growth on its platform.
In fact, “platform revenue” as the streaming company calls it, increased by 79% to $179.3 million in Q3—notable, given that ad sales for Roku surpassed its hardware business only last year. “Player revenue”—the amount of money generated by selling Roku OTT boxes, dongles and smart speakers—increased by 11% to $81.6 million in the third quarter.
Roku, which has been the hottest—and at times, most volatile—stock in the streaming video world over the last 18 months, beats analysts’ forecast in terms of revenue, gross profit and adjusted EBITDA.
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Active users for the platform increased by 1.7 million during Q3 to 32.3 million, while the number of hours streamed in the Roku ecosystem increased by 0.9 billion during the quarter to 10.3 billion.
Average revenue per user was up 30% to $22.58, while gross profit increased by 50% to $118.5 million.
In their letter to shareholders today, Roku CEO Anthony Wood and CFO Steve Louden tied Roku’s expansion directly to the ongoing spike in cord-cutting.
“According to eMarketer, around 56 million households in total will have canceled cable or satellite TV subscriptions by 2023,” the letter said. “Approximately 1.7 million consumers cut the cord in Q3 alone. Our own research indicates that roughly 50% of U.S. cord cutters are Roku customers, and cord cutters who choose Roku products are highly satisfied with the decision and extremely unlikely to consider returning to a traditional pay TV subscription.”
Roku will conduct its quarterly earnings call Wednesday at 5 p.m. EST.
