• by Wayne Friedman , November 5, 2020

While providing no advertising revenue dollar specifics, Roku, the set-top-box and smart TV streaming platform of TV and video apps, says third-quarter video advertising impressions that were “monetized” rose 90% year-over-year, according to its recent financial report.

This was an improvement over the 50% increase in the second quarter versus the same period a year before.

The company says: “Ninety-seven percent of TV advertisers that spent $1 million or more with Roku in third-quarter 2019 continued to invest in third quarter 2020.”

For 2020, Roku is projected to pull in $566 million in video advertising dollars, rising to $902 million in 2021, according to MoffettNathanson Research.

In the second quarter of this year, Roku was projected by analysts to have $116 million in ad revenue -- which would be 32% of Roku’s overall reported revenue of $356.1 million in the period.

Looking at all revenues in the third quarter, Roku posted a strong 73% rise in revenues year-over-year to $451.7 million, with most of its gain coming from its “platform” revenue -- access to Roku apps via internal smart TV and media platforms.

Platform business rose 78% to $319.2 million. Roku set-top box device revenue was up 62% to $132.4 million.

Roku derives revenue from set-top-box sales, as well as subscription and advertising fee revenue-sharing agreements with app providers.

Roku posted operating income of $12 million versus losses in previous periods. In addition, there was positive cash flow -- earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization -- of $56.2 million.

There was a gain of 2.9 million incrementally in the third quarter versus the second quarter -- now totaling 46 million. This is up 43% versus the third quarter of 2019. Roku said its average revenue per user grew 20% year-over-year to $27.00 per month.

First-time advertiser clients more than doubled, largely coming from those marketers using its OneView ad platform.

OneView allows advertisers to buy media against performance guarantees based on business outcomes such as website visits or mobile app downloads.

The platform evolved out of Roku's Dataxu, the demand-side platform that purchased last October.