Roku reports 35.8 billion streaming hours during Q1 2025
Roku reports 35.8 billion streaming hours during Q1 2025
The largest streaming platform in North America is continuing to expand its reach, including announcing a massive acquisition.
Can anyone slow down Roku? The streaming device and smart TV manufacturer is in tens of millions of households, and its streaming service The Roku Channel is streamed for billions of collective minutes each month. Roku reported its earnings for the first quarter of 2025 on Thursday, demonstrating yet another increase in its household presence in the United States. But the company’s year-over-year earnings success was overshadowed by the announcement that Roku had acquired skinny bundle streaming service Frndly TV.
Key Details:
- Billion with a ‘B’: Roku’s total streaming hours increased 5.1 billion year-over-year.
- It’s all cyclical: As is always the case, Roku did see a decline in revenue, but that is to be expected following the football season.
- Very popular: The Roku Channel was the No. 2 app in the United States on Roku’s platform.
To start out 2025, Roku claims that it is present in over “half of broadband households” in the United States. The company did not disclose its total homes for the first three months of the year, but at the end of the 2024 fourth quarter, the company reported that it had 89.9 million households streaming via its platform. For all TV and streaming platforms, the first quarter of the year usually represents a significant drop as the NFL and college football seasons end. Therefore, Roku touted its year-over-year success, rather than its performance over the previous three months.
In Q1, Roku reported having 35.8 billion streaming hours, an increase of 5.1 billion over the corresponding quarter in 2024. Its free streaming service The Roku Channel experienced an 84% jump in the number of streaming hours it compiled in the year-ago quarter. As per usual, Roku did not disclose the monthly active users it has on The Roku Channel. However, the company did reveal that the Roku Channel app has become the second-most popular app on the Roku platform in the U.S.
Programming-wise, Roku continued to add more sports options to The Roku Channel in the first quarter. The company agreed to a deal to stream live Pro Volleyball Federation matches in January, and a few weeks later announced a new, weekly women's sports show called “Women’s Sports Now” which covers all the biggest sporting events from the previous week.
On the hardware front, Roku announced it was launching a new line of smart TVs manufactured in-house, as well as two new streaming sticks with a starting price of just $30. These new sets and sticks will allow Roku to take an even firmer hold over in-home entertainment in the United States.
Roku Channel
The Roku Channel is a free, ad-supported streaming service that offers a broad mix of movies, TV shows, live linear channels, and original programming. Available to all viewers — not just Roku device owners — the service features licensed content from major studios alongside Roku Originals, which include exclusive series, movies, and specials previously produced for Quibi, as well as new original projects developed specifically for the platform.