The year 2020 was a big year for streaming and Roku’s preliminary numbers for Q4 are already showing that. The company announced today that they reached 51.2 million active accounts — up by approximately 14 million accounts in 2020. This is up from the 46 million they reported in Q3 2020 earnings report.
The company also announced an estimated 17 billion streaming hours in the fourth quarter for a total of 58.7 billion hours in 2020, an increase of 55 percent year over year for the quarter and the full year.
“I’m excited that more than 50 million households now turn to Roku for their TV viewing,” said Roku CEO Anthony Wood. “The world is moving to streaming and we look forward to continuing to help viewers, advertisers, content publishers, and TV manufacturers succeed in the Streaming Decade.”
In comparison, Amazon announced that they garnered 50 million active users on Fire TV devices around the world in December, a 25 percent increase in users since January 2020.
Though the pandemic definitely had something to do with Roku’s continuously rocketing numbers, the company also made some big agreements last year. After months of negotiations, Roku finally reached a deal to bring NBCUniversal’s Peacock to the platform in September. In addition to Peacock, they have said the new expanded deal will bring NBC content to The Roku Channel and involves a “meaningful” partnership around advertising.
Right before the launch of “Wonder Woman 1984”, Roku reached a deal to bring HBO Max to the platform.
In October, Roku announced that The Roku Channel would now be available on Amazon Fire TV giving Fire TV customers access to The Roku Channel’s thousands free, ad-supported movies and TV episodes, 115 live/linear channels as well as kids and family entertainment offering thousands of TV episodes and movies.