Roku Inc. delivered a surprise profit for the fourth quarter Thursday, while issuing an upbeat forecast for the current period.
The company posted a fourth-quarter profit of $67.3 million, or 49 cents a share, versus a loss of $15.7 million, or 13 cents a share, a year earlier. Analysts surveyed by FactSet were expecting a 5-cent loss per share.
Roku
ROKU,
-0.87%
reported adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (Ebitda) of $113.5 million, up from $15.1 million a year prior and ahead of the FactSet consensus, which called for $43 million.
Shares were up 1.8% in after-hours trading Thursday.
Revenue for the fourth quarter increased to $649.9 million from $411 million, while analysts were calling for $619 million. The company generated $178.7 million in revenue from its player business and $471.2 million in revenue from its platform business, which includes licensing and advertising.
“Despite a pandemic-related advertising slowdown in the U.S., our advertising business proved resilient, with Q4 Roku monetized video-advertising impressions more than doubling year-over-year, as advertisers increasingly followed users from traditional pay-TV to streaming,” the company said in its letter to shareholders.
Roku’s average revenue per user was $28.76, up from $23.14 a year prior.
The company disclosed 51.2 million active accounts as of the fourth quarter after it added a net of 5.2 million accounts on a sequential basis. Roku users streamed 17 billion hours worth of content during the quarter.
For the first quarter, Roku expects revenue of $478 million to $493 million. The company projects a net loss of $16 million to $23 million. Analysts were predicting $463 million in revenue and a net loss of $52 million.
Shares of Roku have gained 95% over the past three months as the S&P 500
SPX,
-0.44%
has risen 9.7%.
