Roku closed the first quarter of 2022 with 61.3 million active accounts, marking another quarter where the company saw growth in its number of users. The last couple of years have been good to streaming services, partly due to the increase in the number of people having to stay home more often. This has also meant consumers have been looking for new devices to stream on, with Roku continuing to be a popular choice overall.
Roku has spent the last few years establishing itself as more than a company that makes streaming players. For starters, the operating system powering its players and many third-party TVs has evolved considerably. In addition, the launch and use of The Roku Channel continues to see the company making strides within the streaming service market. Not to mention, Roku does also provide access to a number of third-party streaming services through its premium subscriptions. All of which has helped the company to attract new users and maintain existing ones.
Roku released its latest earnings report today, confirming that it had 61.3 million active accounts at the close of the first quarter of this year. This represented an increase of 1.1 million active accounts over the previous quarter, and a year-over-year increase of 7.7 million when compared to the first quarter of 2021. The report also highlighted a 28 percent year-over-year increase in net revenue (to $734 million) and a 12 percent year-over-year increase in gross profit (to $365 million).
For a company like Roku, what’s just as important as the number of active accounts is the actual number of hours those users spent streaming. According to Roku, streaming hours for the last quarter totaled 20.9 billion, resulting in an increase of 1.4 billion when compared to the fourth quarter of 2021. If comparing to the first quarter of 2021, Roku saw a year-over-year increase of 2.6 billion hours streamed. The report also explained how The Roku Channel was one of the top five channels on the Roku platform in the U.S. during the quarter.
The increase in active accounts was not quite as impressive as it was in the previous quarter, considering Roku added 3.7 million in the last three months of the year. However, this is somewhat to be expected considering companies like Roku typically see an increase in device sales during the busy Holiday period. On that note, Roku did register a 12 percent year-over-year decrease in streaming player unit sales during Q1 2022, citing supply chain issues and rising industry costs as reasons. Overall from Roku’s perspective, the company referred to the performance of its first quarter of 2022 as “solid.”
