Roku Q2 sales rise 14%, beatingeExpectations, as losses narrow

Roku‘s numbers for the second quarter of 2024 topped Wall Street expectations, helped by a 2% drop in operating expenses and a 39% increase in devices revenue.

The streaming platform company reported revenue $968.2 million, up 14%. Net loss was $33.95 million, or 24 cents per share, compared with a net loss of $107.6 million in the year-earlier period. Analysts projected Roku to report Q2 revenue of $937.9 million and a net loss of 44 cents per share, per financial data provider LSEG. Gross profit was $425 million, up 12% year over year, as total operating expenses declined 2% to $495.9 million.

Roku said streaming households were 83.6 million, a net increase of 2.0 million from Q1 2024 and up 14% year over year, while streaming hours on its platform were 30.1 billion, up 5.0 billion hours from the year prior.

In Roku’s Platform segment, which encompasses ad sales, content sales and subscription-revenue sharing, revenue was up 11% to $824.3 million. The company said its streaming services distribution business grew faster than Platform revenue overall, due primarily to price increases for subscription-based apps on the Roku platform. Devices revenue increased 39%, to $143.8 million.

“We delivered solid results in Q2,” Roku chief Anthony Wood and CFO Dan Jedda wrote in the letter to shareholders. “The Roku Home Screen, which is the beginning of our viewers’ streaming experience, reaches U.S. households with over 120 million people every day.” The execs noted the company hit its fourth consecutive quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow as a result of top-line growth and “ongoing operational efficiencies.”

For Q3, Roku estimates total net revenue of $1.01 billion, up 11%, with Platform revenue growing 9% and Devices revenue growing 24%. The company expects Q3 total gross profit of $440 million and adjusted EBITDA of $45 million. “We remain confident in our ability to accelerate Platform revenue in 2025 and beyond as we maximize ad demand, lean into our Home Screen as the lead-in for TV, and grow Roku-billed subscriptions,” Wood and Jedda wrote.

As part of boosting the Roku Channel’s slate of free, ad-supported programming, the company this spring landed exclusive multiyear rights for Major League Baseball’s Sunday Leadoff live games, a package previously with NBCUniversal’s Peacock.

While the “foundation of our content spend” remains with third-party licenses and revenue shares, the company continues to “leverage Roku Originals to attract viewers and advertisers,” the execs said in the letter. For example, Roku original series “The Spiderwick Chronicles” landed a sponsorship deal with Airbnb and “we drove viewers from various entry points across the Roku platform, including a takeover of the Roku Home Screen, Roku City, and a ‘Spiderwick’ tile (in the app grid).” According to Roku, the series achieved the highest reach and engagement of any on-demand title in the Roku Channel’s history during its opening weekend.

Also Thursday, Roku announced its adoption of Unified ID 2.0 (UID2), an identity solution developed by the Trade Desk that will let Roku Media become interoperable with multiple programmatic advertising systems. With UID2, Roku “is empowering advertisers to deliver more personalized ad experiences across Roku’s inventory and devices at scale,” according to the company. Variety