Shares of Roku rose 3% Thursday morning after the company reported positive first-quarter results that were above expectations. The company posted adjusted earnings per share that beat Wall Street's estimate by $0.08, while revenue increased by 36.5% to beat analysts' estimate by $9.45 million.
Roku, which is popular for its streaming devices, for the first time in its corporate history managed to generate more money from licensing fees and ads than from hardware sales.
The entertainment tech company made $75.1 million from licensing fees and ads in the first three months of the year. It also made $61.5 million from selling streaming pucks and sticks during the quarter.
Roku went public last year in what was hailed as of the most fruitful IPOs of 2017. Over the past 6 months, the stock has increased by more than 23% as the company continued benefiting from trending video streaming online services such Hulu, Amazon, and Netflix.
ROKU Earnings & Outlook
During the quarter, Roku reported $-0.07 adjusted earnings per share compared to $-1.79 in the year-ago period. The $-0.07 adjusted earnings per share reported topped analyst estimate of $-0.16.
Revenue increased to $136.6 million from $100.1 million during the first quarter of 2017. The $136.6 million revenue beat Wall Street estimate of $127.5 million.
The company projects adjusted earnings per share of between $-0.14 to $-0.19 and revenue of between $135 million to $145 million for the second quarter. Roku raised its outlook for the full year and projects revenue of between $685 million and $705 million.
This stock is usually great for day trading so keep it on your radar over the next couple days!
Roku CEO Comments
Roku Chief Executive Anthony Wood made the following remarks during the release of the company's earnings:
“We kicked off the year with another great quarter. Our purpose-built TV operating system and advertising platform continue to lead the market. Moreover, our advertising and content partners are benefiting from our increasing scale. Nearly half of our roughly 21 million active users have cut the cord or have never had a traditional pay TV subscription, which means that they simply cannot be reached through linear TV. It's hard to build a direct-to-consumer service. A typical media company really doesn't have those skills. The secular shift from legacy TV distribution to streaming continues unabated. We're looking strongly at other channels to expand our reach.”
