Roku earned a gross profit of $808 million on revenues of $1.8 billion in the fourth quarter of 2020, thanks largely to pandemic-based usage gains.
“Roku had both a strong Q4 and 2020,” a letter to Roku shareholders reads. “For both periods we achieved record revenue, gross profit[,] and [financial performance], as consumers and the TV industry continued to shift to streaming.”
For the full year, Roku streaming player unit sales grew 28 percent, and the firm had 51.2 million active accounts in the fourth quarter of 2020, up 14.3 million from the previous sequential quarter. Streaming hours were up 20.9 billion hours year-over-year to a record 58.7 billion hours. And average revenue per user grew $5.62 YOY to $28.76.
Roku reports that this growth was driven by the popularity of its streaming players and Roku TV models, the latter of which was the best-selling smart TV system in the U.S. with 38 percent marketshare. Revenues from advertising also doubled in 2020, Roku says.
Looking ahead, Roku sees volatility in 2021 as vaccine rollouts compete with new COVID-19 variants and things possibly return as much as possible to normal. Overall, it expects year-over-year comparisons to be unfavorably skewed because of the abnormally positive results in 2020.
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