• by Wayne Friedman , October 31, 2024

Although Roku's third-quarter 2024 financial results blew past company guidance -- up 16% to $1.06 billion in revenue -- the streaming distributor shocked investors with a decision to stop disclosing streaming household data going forward.

The company also said it would no longer reveal key ARPU data -- the average revenue per user.

In after-market trading, Roku’s stock plummeted 12% on Thursday to $67.53. It was the biggest one-day loss for the company since mid-February when the company issued a lower than expected forecast.

Similar to what Netflix announced in April -- a halt to future disclosures of subscribers and ARPU data -- Roku will stop revealing streaming households and ARPU data starting in the first quarter of 2025.

For the third quarter, the big streaming distributor did see a rise of 1.9 million streaming homes from the second-quarter 2024 to 85.5 million.

ARPU was $41.10, unchanged versus a year ago.

A company release says it still expects to grow streaming homes -- and will announce key streaming milestones such as when it will hit 100 million households, estimated to come in the next 12 to 18 months.

Going forward, in the fourth quarter, the company expects similar revenue growth to the third quarter -- 14% higher. Company guidance for the third quarter was a 9% increase.

Michael Morris, media analyst of Guggenheim Securities, says this is now something of a rerun: “Management has consistently exceeded revenue guidance since 1Q22, with results in each of the past eight quarters outperforming on average by 5%.”

Roku's third-quarter revenue gains came from subscription price increases and higher political advertising revenue.

Cash flow also posted a strong result. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) amounted to $98 million -- well ahead of the $45 million company guidance.

It also noted total streaming hours grew 20% year-over-year to 32 billion in the period, with 4.1 hours per day per streaming household. The company says this is favorable to Nielsen estimates for traditional TV homes, which averages around 7 hours per day.