• by Wayne Friedman , February 15, 2024

Roku grew its fourth-quarter platform revenue -- primarily advertising sales -- by 13% to $828.9 million.

The company says it “outperformed” the overall ad market, as well as the U.S. linear TV ad marketplace.

Roku says it used Guideline -- formerly Standard Media Index-- as a benchmark to determine its higher results.

But Brian Wieser, media analyst for Madison and Wall, a substack publication, says: "[Guideline] underestimate growth rates for spending by large brands as well as revenue within television and the broader ad market. Guideline's figures indicate approximately 3% growth in the fourth quarter for the full market."

While Wieser believes the overall connected TV ad platform business is growing, he says it comes from cannibalizing “other TV budgets.” A better sense of Roku'a growth should come when TV networks report their fourth-quarter results soon.

For its part, Roku says there is continued growth of its active accounts -- up 14% year-over-year to 80 million. It was at 75.8 million at the end of the third quarter of 2023.

Somewhat alarmingly Roku's average revenue per user slipped 4% to $39.92. 

Roku stock was slammed -- down 15% to $80.75 in after-market trading, when the company released its quarterly results.

Much of this could be attributed to a new possible growing entry into its streaming TV/video platform business.

Roku executives had no comment about reports Walmart is in talks to buy Vizio Holdings, the smart TV set maker and smart TV ad-selling platform, for $2 billion.

Roku's quarterly company-wide revenue grew 14% to $984.4 million year-over-year.

In addition to its platform revenue of $829 million, Roku said device revenue was up 15% to $155.6 million.

Net losses from operations narrowed by 58% to $104.2 million.

Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) was $47.7 million, reversing a $95.2 million net cash flow loss in the fourth quarter a year before.