• by Wayne Friedman , January 6, 2021

Streaming media platform Roku has grown its active accounts by 38% at the end of 2020 to 51.2 million -- slightly higher than the number of active accounts for competitor Amazon Fire TV.

Roku added 14 million active accounts at the end of December 2020, up from 37.2 million at the end of 2019.

In 2020, the streaming device and platform company says, total streaming hours grew a massive 55% to 58.7 billion versus the year before. In the fourth quarter of 2020, total streaming hours were 17.1 million, also up 55% from the fourth quarter of 2019.

Roku now says it reaches 61.8 million people in U.S. TV households -- double its reach number of a year ago.

Earlier in the day, Roku received some positive news after a Wells Fargo analyst increased his price target to $414 from $275.

Roku's stock was up 17% on Tuesday to $335.18.

Wells Fargo estimates active Roku accounts spent 3.7 hours a day on the platform, which equates to about $1.79 in monthly average ad revenue per user. For 2021, it expects viewing time to grow 10% to 12% over current levels.

MoffettNathanson Research estimates Roku will pull in $566 million in video advertising dollars for 2020.

Last month, Roku's competitor, Amazon Fire TV, said it also reached the 50 million monthly active users level -- up from 40 million monthly active users in January of 2020.