Why Roku (ROKU) Stock Is on Fire Today

By Paul Ausick Published Nov 2, 3:10PM EDT

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Streaming video provider Roku Inc. (NASDAQ: ROKU | ROKU Price Prediction) put up some solid revenue growth numbers when it reported third-quarter results Wednesday afternoon. Roku stock is trading up by about 30% Thursday morning.

Revenue reached an all-time high of $912 million for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate by 6.4%. Year over year, revenue was nearly 20% higher. A strong lift to Roku’s fourth-quarter guidance sealed the deal.

Let’s look at some numbers.

Revenue and earnings

Roku’s revenue rose for the third straight quarter and beat the consensus estimate for the fifth consecutive quarter. The company guided fourth-quarter revenue to $955 million, above the consensus estimate of $951.7 million. The raised guidance is based on growth in video ad revenue remaining at the same growth rate as in the third quarter.

The company also guided gross profit to around $405 million for the fourth quarter, up about 9.8% sequentially and up 11.3% year over year.

Strong revenue did not come with good news on profit. Roku posted a wider loss per share than analysts expected, $2.33 against the estimate of $2.04.

Margin

Gross margin fell by 6.4 percentage points year over year to 40.4% and by about 4.3 points sequentially. The decline was attributed to a $62 million restructuring charge in Roku’s platform segment. Excluding the charge, platform gross margin would have been 56%, reflecting a sequential increase of 3%. Platform revenue for the quarter totaled $787 million, while revenue in the devices segment totaled $125.2 million.

Devices gross margin was negative 7.5% in the quarter, down from negative 17% in the prior quarter and down from negative 15.8% in the third quarter of 2022. Roku reported a loss of $9.4 million in the devices segment, down sequentially from a loss of $17.6 million and a year-ago loss of $14.9 million in the third quarter.

Customers

Roku reported 75.8 million active accounts, a net increase of 2.3 million compared to the second quarter. Streaming hours rose by 4.9 billion to 26.7 billion. Over the past 12 months, streaming hours topped 100 billion hours for the first time in the company’s history.

The company’s average revenue per user was down 7% on a trailing 12-month basis to $41.03.

Roku has two other positive factors working for it: no long-term debt and positive net operating cash flow. Interest expenses totaled just $10 million in the third quarter, compared to $1.16 million in the third quarter of last year. Operating cash flow for the first nine months of the year rose from $4.44 million a year ago to $239.53 million.

Roku stock traded up about 31% in early afternoon trading at $78.20 in a 52-week range of $38.26 to $98.44. Trading volume has soared to around 28 million shares, compared to a daily average of about 6.2 million.

About the Author Paul Ausick →

Paul Ausick has been writing for a673b.bigscoots-temp.com for more than a decade. He has written extensively on investing in the energy, defense, and technology sectors. In a previous life, he wrote technical documentation and managed a marketing communications group in Silicon Valley.

He has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Chicago and now lives in Montana, where he fishes for trout in the summer and stays inside during the winter.