Commentary: Is Roku's Growth Fostering A 'Switzerland' Of All Streaming Video?

 

Commentary

Is Roku's Growth Fostering A 'Switzerland' Of All Streaming Video?

• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, 7 hours ago

It may still be amazing to some to witness Roku's growing strength in the streaming world.

Recent outperforming earnings results showed a 16% revenue increase to $1.39 billion and a return to profitability, and analysts are all thumbs up on the company.

In terms of controlling streaming hardware and operating system (OS), Roku has 50% market share. Perhaps even more significant is that this is substantially more than Amazon Fire TV, Google TV and Apple TV.

Those are some giant media competitors. But perhaps those big names have their focus elsewhere -- on other rapidly growing businesses.

Strategically, Roku has been able to squeeze into this niche and succeed.

Some say Roku’s performance is all about platform neutrality. Roku does not give specific weight to just one premium streaming service.

For example, Amazon focuses heavily on Prime Video, Google on YouTube and Apple on Apple TV. It does not necessarily play favorites even as it heavily promotes The Roku Channel.

For many, as a free ad-supported streaming service, this does not really compete directly with the bigger premium streamers.

All that means more easily working with TV set manufacturers that want to place the Roku OS without fear they are pushing one big-name streamer over another.

What about the downside? Going forward, that could be a Walmart-Vizio combination.

Walmart has been a major retailer for Roku -- a marketing partner of sorts to help foster that "neutrality," which consumers may have been looking for.

For many, Roku is now an accepted as a replacement -- or partial replacement -- for old-school "cable TV" distributors.

That's all the more reason why the likes of Comcast, Charter and other traditional cable TV-centric companies are trying to play catch-up by also distributing streaming services through video packages at the same time as their traditional TV networks.

Can Roku keep the "neutrality" thing going -- as well as huge media companies like Amazon, Google, and Apple?

Perhaps Roku needs to talk up its status more as the industry’s "Switzerland."