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Despite the fact that Roku’s devices are assembled in China, the company is not concerned that the ongoing tariff war between the United States and China will impact its revenue expectations. The company addresses shareholder concerns during its earnings call for the first quarter of 2025 on Thursday.
During its earnings report, Roku reaffirmed that it expects 2025 revenue to be $3.95 billion and its adjusted EBITDA to be $350 million. This may change as Roku monitors the macro environment.
“There’s a lot of macro uncertainty, but there’s a lot of Roku-specific positives that give us confidence to reaffirm our guidance in the full year,” Anthony Wood, founder, chairman and CEO of Roku, said during the company’s earnings call. Specifically, he pointed to consumer and advertiser shifts to streaming.
“If you look at our execution over the last two years, it’s really positioned our business to be in a better position to navigate environments like we’re seeing now with the macro uncertainty. So for example, we really diversified our revenue streams. We have more diversified ad products, and we’re less reliant on M-and-E,” Wood said, referring to monitoring and evaluation. “We’re tapping into more ad demand sources through our deeper integration with third-party DSPs [demand-side platform], and we have a lot of supplies that continues to grow.”
Chief Financial Officer Dan Jedda was more frank, stating that “we did assume some weakening in the macro.” He then added that Roku plans to remain “vigilant and adaptable to market condition as they evolve.”
“We are not the same company that we were even two years ago. We have a very diversified platform revenue stream, including the subscriptions that are growing well and all the advertising initiatives that Anthony mentioned earlier,” Jedda said. “So we’re confident our strategy and we continue to see the path to achieving positive operating income in 2026.”
Here are the top-line results:
Net loss: $27.4 million, compared to a net loss of $50.6 million a year ago as well as a 46% year-over-year increase.
Earnings per share: A loss of 19 cents per share, compared to a loss of 27 cents per share estimated by analysts surveyed by Zacks Investment Research.
Revenue: $1.02 billion, up 16% year over year.
Operating loss: $57.7 million, compared to $72 million a year ago, a 20% year-over-year increase.
Streaming Hours: 35.8 billion total streaming hours during the quarter, up 17% year-over-year.
During the first quarter of the year, Roku saw increases in revenue generated from both its platform and devices sides, but platform saw more of a lift. Platform revenue for the first quarter of 2025 totaled $881 million, a 17% increase compared to this time last year. Platform revenue was in line with the company’s expectations. However, video advertising and distribution activities related to streaming services grew faster than overall platform revenue.
This was in part due to changes on the streaming side such as those implemented around AI and The Roku Channel. This past quarter, the company added a personalized, AI-driven content row for users that highlights shows and movies across Roku’s platform. More than a third of households that streamed Roku in the U.S. streamed monthly from the content row during the quarter. As for The Roku Channel, that offering became the No. 2 app on the streaming platform in the U.S. while maintaining its No. 3 position globally. Streaming hours for The Roku Channel increased 84% year-over-year.
As for device revenue, that totaled roughly $140 million, an 11% increase. During the quarter, Roku maintained its position as the No. 1 selling TV operating system in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. In the United States along, Roku TV represented nearly 40% of all TV units sold, a share that was greater than the second and third bestselling operating systems combined.
The company also addressed its recent purchase of Frndly TV in a $185 million cash deal. The deal with the Denver-based streaming service that gives subscribers assess to live TV channels like A&E, Hallmark Channel, The History Channel and Lifetime, is expected to go through in the second quarter of 2025. When asked if the move represents the company looking back at the dying linear TV space, Wood defended the acquisition.
“If you look at cable subscriptions and their replication is virtual, MVPD, it’s easy to think that’s going to not last as a bundle forever,” Wood said. “It’s actually growing in popularity on our platform, linear channels. Sometimes people call them FAST channels. They’re very popular and a huge form of engagement. There’s a lot of people that like to just flip through the channel.”
In 2024, the company continued to make progress toward profitability, narrowing its net loss to $129.3 million for the year. During that time frame, the company also increased its penetration in the U.S., surpassing half of all broadband households.
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