Roku beat Wall Street’s revenue estimates for the first quarter of 2026 and raised its full-year profit outlook as it continues to rise on the streaming video bandwagon.
Additionally, Roku reported for the first time the results of its Advertising and Subscriptions business unit (which is included in its Platforms segment) to provide investors with further insight into the company’s business. The company touted its first quarter as its highest quarter ever for premium subscription sign-ups.
The San Jose, California-based company reported first-quarter sales of $1.248 billion, an increase of 22% year-over-year, and net income of $85.7 million, or 57 cents per diluted share, compared with a net loss of $27.4 million for the first quarter of 2025. Adjusted EBITDA for the most recent quarter increased 165% to $148.4 million.
“We are executing on our monetization initiatives and remain well-positioned to drive sustained double-digit growth for our platform and achieve $1 billion in free cash flow as early as 2028,” Roku founder and CEO Anthony Wood and CFO and COO Dan Jeda said in a statement.
Roku’s stock price soared more than 11% in after-hours trading following the earnings announcement.
Earlier this month, Roku announced it had surpassed 100 million streaming households worldwide (defined as the number of distinct user accounts streaming on its platform in a given 30-day period). The company no longer releases this number on a quarterly basis.
Roku raised its full-year adjusted EBITDA guidance to $675 million (up from $635 million previously). The company expects platform revenue to increase approximately 21% to $5 billion, device revenue to $535 million, and total net revenue to approximately $5.5 billion. This is a 16% increase compared to 2025.
The results show that Roku continues to compete with big tech companies like Amazon, Google, Apple, and Samsung in the connected TV space.
In the first quarter, Roku’s platform division (which includes revenue from ad sales and subscription video partners) had revenue of $1.13 billion, an increase of 28%, and a gross margin of 51.6%.
Advertising revenue increased 27% to $613 million, resulting in a gross margin of 60.5%. According to the company, video advertising growth on the Roku platform has outpaced both the U.S. over-the-top streaming market and the digital advertising market. “We believe this outperformance reflects the growing recognition among advertisers that Roku’s unique combination of scale, first-party data, and innovative advertising technology delivers measurable results that help grow their businesses,” Wood and Jedha wrote in the letter.
Roku’s “focus” on subscriptions helped the business’ first-quarter revenue rise 30% to $519 million, with a gross margin of 41.1%. Excluding low-cost streaming service Frndly, which it acquired last year, subscription revenue rose 23%.
Revenue from the devices business, where Roku is a loss-making leader on the platform side, was $118 million, down 16%. This decrease was primarily due to lower unit sales of players and lower promotional prices. The segment’s gross margin for the first quarter was -16.3%.
Total streaming hours across the Roku platform in Q1 was 38.7 billion hours, an 8% increase year over year.
For the second quarter, Roku expects platform revenue to increase 20% and device revenue to decline “in the high single digits.” The company expects total net revenue to be $1.3 billion, slightly above Wall Street’s prior expectations (up nearly 17%). Total profit for the June quarter is expected to be $580 million, with adjusted EBITDA of $170 million.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, Roku announced a deal with the CW network to bring CW programming to the Roku Channel with next-day streaming starting in fall 2026. This includes new series “Private Eyes West Coast,” “Police 24/7,” game shows “Scrabble” and “Trivial Pursuit,” which will be available on the CW-branded hub on the Roku Channel. Additionally, new installments of “WWE NXT” will be available to stream on the Roku Channel every Wednesday, following Tuesday night’s live broadcast on The CW.
