Charlie Collier

Roku’s video advertising business has really been booming lately, as CEO Anthony Wood shared on a call with investors Thursday evening.

Shopify is growing its advertising and data business; the privacy train is slowing down; Roku is striking deals to make its data more accessible.

Roku acquired subscription streaming service Frndly TV for $185M and reported Q1 revenue over $1 billion. But its Q2 outlook missed expectations due to tariffs dinging manufacturing revenue.

Roku reported $4.1 billion in revenue for 2024, an 18% jump year over year. Its platform business in particular, which includes ad sales and streaming distribution, reached $3.5 billion last year, also an 18% jump compared to 2023 (or 15% excluding political ad revenue).

Roku announced an integration with The Trade Desk’s UID 2.0 identifier to attract new buyers and “increase monetization per account” by improving ad targeting, said Roku CEO Anthony Wood during the company’s earnings call Thursday.

Roku had a promising Q4, with steady revenue growth thanks to more active accounts and new ad offerings. But ARPU was down, and investors had a skeptical response.

Roku’s mid-year finances reveal mixed signals. Active accounts are up, but the ongoing writers’ strike is causing advertising growth to stagnate.

Roku’s platform business – which includes ad sales and streaming content distribution – is down this quarter. The company is widening its programmatic net to snag more ad dollars.

Considering Roku decided to start manufacturing smart TVs in the middle of a looming recession, its Q4 results probably could have been worse.