Roku Adds 1.9 Million Active Users During Q2 2023, but Viewing Time Plateaus at 25.1 Billion Hours
April showers bring May flowers, and they also brought a bump in subscribers to The Roku Channel during the second quarter of 2023. Roku unveiled its second-quarter earnings results on Thursday, July 27, and as part of the report revealed that it had grown to 73.5 million active monthly users. The increase represents a 16% year-over-year increase from the 63.1M reported during the corresponding quarter in 2022.
That’s an increase of 1.9M from the 71.6 million users Roku Channel claimed at the end of Q1. The service was streamed for 25.1 billion hours during the quarter, holding steady at the total viewed in the first three months of 2023. Despite the spring and summer slowdown, Roku’s streaming hours are up 21% year-over-year. However, due to the plateauing of viewing hours and the general decrease in the ad market, Roku’s average revenue per user (ARPU) came in at $40.67 for the quarter, a 7% decline from Q2 2022’s $43.81 and even more from the following quarter’s $44.01.
The figures leave Roku Channel ahead of Tubi, which last gave a report of 64 million monthly active users in February. Paramount’s free streaming platform Pluto TV is still besting Roku however, as that streamer last reported having 80 million monthly active users. Amazon’s free streaming platform Freevee does not reveal subscriber numbers to the public.
There was a wide array of new content coming to Roku Channel announced during the first quarter of 2023. The service will bring on new original series produced by some of Hollywood's biggest stars, including Jessica Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara. The service also signed its first live sports rights agreement, announcing a deal with Formula E racing to start streaming its races in January.
Supplementing those oncoming programming options are free streams of local ABC stations in eight markets across the United States. These channels came to Roku in June, expanding live, local news coverage for users from Los Angeles to Philadelphia, and solving one of the biggest problems cord cutters in those markets face: how to give up cable and still see local content.
These additions and announcements have helped drive more customers to Roku, as its earnings report suggests. Data from Nielsen also backs up the assertion that Roku is gaining viewers; the Roku Channel earned 1.1% of total TV viewing in May of this year, a milestone that all streamers are striving for. Advertisers might be the biggest gainers from the increase; Roku recently introduced shoppable ads that allow users to buy products with their TV remote.
Roku Channel
The Roku Channel is a free live TV streaming service that provides 350+ live linear streaming channels and more than 80,000 free movies and TV shows. The library contains entertainment from several different decades, including some major hits.