Streaming device maker Roku is paying the price for floating its shares on Wall Street last year. Roku got hammered by financial analysts even as Consumer Reports praised Roku’s products.
What’s Going Right at Roku?
Roku’s streaming boxes and streaming sticks are the most popular option among cord-cutters and anyone else who wants to stream video to their televisions. Good performance, a lot of apps, and low prices make Roku an easy choice to make.
The venerable Consumer Reports just published a round-up of the top five streaming devices and gave Roku two of the spots on the list. They praised the Roku Stick+ for its set-it-and-forget-it design. The Roku Ultra earned praise for a better remote control and faster performance.
What’s Wrong at Roku?
Numbers. Now that Roku is a publicly-traded stock, the company’s executives have to convince hundreds of analysts that they have the right plan.
Roku’s stock fell almost 18% on recent news that Roku didn’t earn as much as analysts expected, The Mercury News reported.
Roku depends on sales of its popular set-top boxes. But those sales fell last year due to better smart TV experiences.
Roku has a plan: become the smart TV platform of choice for the world’s TV-makers and use its hardware to sell advertising. That Google-ish logic makes sense, but whether Wall Street’s short term attitude will give Roku time to change horses in midstream is an open question.
Chris Casper is a former tech industry product manager who escaped from California for New Mexico. Now he writes about science and tech while searching for the perfect green chile sauce.
