Roku added 2.9 million incremental active accounts in the first quarter to raise its total to 39.8 million as the company’s platform revenue grew significantly year over year.
The company’s total net revenue grew 55% year over year to $321 million – which Roku said was the fastest first-quarter revenue growth rate in five years. Platform revenue rose 73% year over year to reach $232.6 million.
Roku said that since mid-March, subscription video on demand trials and subscriptions, and transactional video on demand purchases are up on its platform. The company also said it saw some negative impacts on its advertising business – primarily in the form video ad campaign cancelations – due to COVID-19, but expected the virus and linear TV viewership declines could contribute in the future.
“With COVID-19 and the ongoing linear ratings slide, we expect buyers will accelerate their reallocation of linear TV budgets to Roku, because of our audience reach and advanced advertising capabilities,” the company wrote in a letter to shareholders.
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The Roku Channel, the company’s ad-supported streaming and subscription video platform, is growing faster than the overall platform. The company said it recorded a 100% increase in streaming hours year over year and that the Roku Channel now reaches approximately 36 million people.
Roku said its overall streaming hours increased by 1.6 billion hours over last quarter to 13.2 billion, which it said was a record, and that average revenue per user reached $24.35, up 28% year over year.
While platform revenue continues to account for a larger share of Roku’s overall revenues, the company’s player revenue keeps growing, too, up 22% to $88.2 million.
Despite the uptick in revenues, Roku’s loss from operations still totaled $55.2 million and its adjusted EBITDA swung to a loss of $16.3 million.