Roku Grows User Base to 29 Million

The technology company grew revenue by 51 percent to $207 million during the first quarter of the year.

Roku grew its user base by 40 percent during the first three months of 2019 as it focuses in on making its streaming video platform available on third-party television sets.

The Los Gatos, California-based company now has 29.1 million active accounts that streamed 8.9 billion hours of programming during the first quarter. Roku, which sells advertising against that audience, grew its platform revenue by 79 percent to $134 million. That's almost double the revenue it earns from selling its set-top box devices, which grew 18 percent to $72.5 million during the period.

All told, Roku had revenue of nearly $207 million during the quarter, up 51 percent year-over-year, and lost $10.7 million.

"The strength of our brand, the scale of our active account base, the advantages of our purpose-built streaming OS, and the engagement of our users make Roku an increasingly important partner for content publishers, advertisers and TV manufacturers," CEO Anthony Wood said Wednesday in a statement. "The shift to streaming and away from linear TV and legacy distribution platforms has enormous momentum. We estimate that in Q1 2019 more than one-in-three smart TVs sold in the U.S. were Roku TVs, making the Roku OS the #1 selling smart TV OS in the U.S."

The company expects to bring in second-quarter revenue between $220 million and $225 million and to lose between $25 million and $30 million.

Roku shares, which closed the day up less than one percent, were trading up more than 8 percent after hours on the better-than-expected earnings.