While most big tech companies reported their Q1 financial results last week, there are still are few stragglers worth keeping your eyes peeled for. One of them that reported better-than-expected results was Roku (NASDAQ: ROKU). Most streaming service providers did quite well in 2020 and still are beating expectations right now in 2021. Roku’s stock is gaining right now in pre-market trading after the company reported an almost 80% increase in revenue compared to last year.
The streaming giant’s revenues rose to $574.2 million, compared to the $320.8 million reported last year. Around $466.5 million of that was from platform revenue, while another $107.7 million was due to player revenue. Roku also added 2.4 million new active accounts during the first quarter of 2021, bringing its current total to around 53.6 million. That’s around one-fourth of Netflix’s current subscription numbers, but management is happy with these figures.
Perhaps the best thing about Roku’s results was that it reported a net profit of $76.3 million, or around 54 cents per share. Around the same time last year, Roku saw a loss of $54.7 million instead. Analysts had expected that Roku would report another loss for this quarter, so these results were a splendid surprise to most analysts.
“The Roku Channel continues to perform well, as it provides easy access to content with broad appeal, which attracts viewers, which attracts advertising spend, which in turn enables reinvestment in more content. And our hardware and operating system deliver a best-in-class user experience,” read an official press release from Roku issued on Thursday afternoon.
For the next quarter, Roku expects revenues to come in between $610 to $620 million. In comparison, analysts have expected something closer to $550 million for the upcoming quarter. Throughout most of 2020, streaming services enjoyed a tremendous increase in active subscription numbers. This has led to a more-or-less permanent boost in revenue figures for these companies. Roku’s management remains optimistic that 2021 will be another great year for the company.
Shares of Roku were down around 6.6% on Thursday, leading up to the results. However, shares quickly recovered by 7.7% in after-hours trading. While it’s still pretty good news for the streaming company, the results are somewhat overshadowed by what’s been an amazing quarter for tech earnings. Big companies like Amazon, Tesla, Microsoft, etc., have all reported staggering Q1 results. While Roku’s Q1 figures would have been excellent in a normal quarter, they’ve become pretty standard in this current climate.
Roku Company Profile
Roku Inc operates TV streaming platform in the United States. Its TV streaming platform allows users to discover and access a variety of movies and TV episodes, as well as live sports, music, news, and others. The operating segments of the company are Player and Platform. It derives key revenue from the Player segment which consists of net sales of streaming media players and accessories through retailers and distributors, as well as directly to customers through the company’s website. Platform segment consists of fees received from advertisers and content publishers, and from licensing the company’s technology and proprietary operating system with TV brands and service operators. – Warrior Trading News