Roku CEO Smart TV Growth But Stock Falls
Roku executives are optimistic about smart TV usage increases but investors were less pleased with forecasts, sending the stock closing down 17.7 percent at $42.05 Thursday. Wednesday after regular U.S. markets closed, the company forecast Q1 sales of $120 million…
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to $130 million, reportedly less than some analysts expected. Nonetheless, with one in five smart TVs sold in the U.S. last year having Roku operating systems built in, the company is “increasingly tapping into” the $70 billion pool that U.S advertisers spend on TV “as the TV ad ecosystem moves to streaming,” said CEO Anthony Wood on a Wednesday earnings call. The “large secular shift” to streaming from “traditional linear TV” is “causing a lot of positive trends for us,” said Wood. The streaming TV provider is using automatic content recognition to measure audiences, said Scott Rosenberg, senior vice president-advertising. "It gives us visibility into what's happening on the linear side of viewership."