Roku Q3 Earnings Top Estimates, Company to Stop Reporting Streaming Households Metric

Roku‘s streaming business clocked a solid quarter as the company posted third-quarter 2024 results that topped Wall Street forecasts.

But the company said it will stop reporting its streaming households — saying that it’s no longer a relevant metric — similar to Netflix’s announced plans to discontinue reporting subscriber figures quarterly. For the third quarter, Roku reported streaming households of 85.5 million, a net increase of 2.0 million from Q2 and up 13% year over year.

“Since our IPO in 2017, the streaming industry has evolved meaningfully, with Americans now spending significantly more TV time streaming than watching cable. Our business has also grown and evolved, and we are now primarily focused on growing Platform revenue and profitability,” Roku said in its Q3 letter to shareholders. As such, beginning with its Q1 2025 earnings results, “we will no longer report quarterly updates on Streaming Households and, by extension, ARPU,” or average revenue per user.

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The company said “our various markets are in different stages of monetization and have different economics. While a large portion of our Streaming Household growth is in our international markets, the majority of our Platform revenue is currently generated in the U.S. Therefore, as we continue to grow internationally, Streaming Household growth is not representative of Platform revenue growth.”

Going forward, Roku said its key performance metrics will streaming hours, Platform revenue, adjusted EBITDA, and free cash flow. Streaming hours for Q3 totaled 32.0 billion, up 20% year over year and up slightly over 30.1 billion in Q2.

For Q3, the company reported net sales of $1.062 billion, up 16% year over year, and a net loss of 6 cents per share. Analyst consensus estimates pegged the company’s Q3 revenue at $1.02 billion and a net loss of 32 cents per share. Previously, Roku forecast Q3 revenue of $1.01 billion, gross profit of $440 million and adjusted EBITDA of $45 million.