Roku Inc

NASDAQ:ROKU

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q1

[Operator]

Good day, everyone, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Roku's First Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] And please be advised that today's conference is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the conference over to Conrad Grodd. Please go ahead.

[Conrad Grodd, executive]

Thank you, operator. Welcome to Roku's First Quarter 2024 Earnings Call. On today's call are Anthony Wood, Roku's Founder and CEO; Dan Jedda, our CFO, Charlie Collier; President Roku Media; and Mustafa Ozgen, President, Devices.

Full details of our results and additional management are available on a shareholder letter, which can be found on our Investor Relations website at roku.com/investor.

On this call, we'll make forward-looking statements, which are predictions, projections or other statements about future events based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions. These statements involve risks and uncertainties. Please refer to our shareholder letter and periodic SEC filings for risk factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements.

On today's call, we'll present GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliations of non-GAAP measures of the most comparable GAAP financial measures are provided in our shareholder letter. Finally, unless otherwise stated, all comparisons on this call results of the comparable period of 2023.

Now I'd like to hand the call over to Anthony.

[Anthony Wood, executive]

Thank you, Conrad. We delivered solid results in Q1, growing streaming households 14% year-over-year, streaming hours 23% and platform revenue 19% year-over-year.

As I mentioned on the Q4 call, this year, we are directing more of our attention to platform growth and innovation. We will accelerate platform EBITDA and free cash flow growth in 2025 by focusing on 3 key opportunities: maximizing the Roku home screen as the lead-in for TV, growing Roku build subscriptions and growing demand for Roku.

Every day, the Roku home screen reaches U.S. households with nearly 120 million people. This significant reach creates a lot of opportunity. I see many ways to improve the user experience while also growing monetization for Roku. For example, the Roku Sports experience, which viewers can click and view right from home screen, addressed with the fragmentation of sport as a shift to streaming, making it easier for viewers to find games and other sports-related content.

The NFL Zone on was our first lead sponsor zone. And for this year's Super Bowl, it was sponsored by TurboTax delivering massive reach to the brand during the critical time of the year.

We recently launched the NBA Zone in partnership with the NBA in April.

We also see a big opportunity to grow Roku build subscriptions. Roku Pay, our payment and billing service simplifies the sign-up process for users so they can quickly transact and start streaming and as your content partners don't lose subscribers due to unnecessary friction at the point of purchase.

Additionally, we are making it easier for advertisers to execute campaigns programmatically on the Roku platform by expanding and deepening our relationships with third-party platforms.

In Q1, we continued to grow programmatic ad spend as a percentage of total video ad spend on the Roku platform.

With our platform advantages, first-party relationships are more than 80 million streaming household and deep user engagement, we are well positioned to accelerate platform revenue growth in 2025 and beyond.

Now I'll turn it over to Dan to discuss our results.

[Dan Jedda, executive]

Thanks, Anthony. We ended Q1 with 81.6 million streaming households, sequential net adds of 1.6 million were in line with Q1 2023 and driven by both TVs and streaming players. We continue to drive strong growth and engagement with streaming hours up 23% year-over-year and surpassing 30 billion for the first time in a single quarter. We also grew engagement per account globally with streaming hours per streaming household per day of 4.2 hours in Q1 2024, up from 3.9 hours in Q1 2023.

In Q1, we grew total net revenue 19% year-over-year to $882 million. Platform revenue was $755 million, also driven by both streaming service distribution and advertising activities.

Streaming services distribution activities grew faster than our overall platform revenue, benefiting in part vision price increases. However, the year-over-year growth rate of streaming services distribution in Q1 2024 was lower than the year-over-year growth rate in Q4 2023 due to lapping past price increases and higher mix shift towards entry-priced ad-supported offerings.

Devices revenue increased 19% year-over-year in Q1, driven by the expansion of retail distribution of Roku-branded TVs.

ARPU was $40.65 in Q1 on a trailing 12-month basis, flat year-over-year. This reflects an increasing share of streaming households in international markets where we are currently focused on growing scale and engagement.

Q1 total gross margin was 44%, down slightly year-over-year. Platform gross margin of 52% was stable year-over-year, while devices gross margin was negative 5%, which was down 8 points year-over-year.

Excluding the onetime $10 million service operator licensing catch-up benefit in Q1 2023, device gross margin would have been roughly flat year-over-year.

Q1 adjusted EBITDA was $41 million, which was above our outlook of breakeven. The better-than-expected performance was driven by our Platform segment along with improvements to our operating expense profile.

Free cash flow was $427 million on a trailing 12-month basis, and we ended the quarter with $2.1 billion of cash and cash equivalents.

Let me turn to our outlook for the second quarter. We anticipate total net revenue of $935 million, gross profit of $410 million with gross margin of 44% and adjusted EBITDA of $30 million.

Our outlook for total net revenue anticipates a 10% year-over-year increase. This takes into account challenging year-over-year growth rate comparisons of streaming services distribution, along with an elevated 606 adjustment in Q2 last year.

We expect Platform margin to be similar to Q2 of last year at roughly 53%.

On the devices side, we expect margin to decline from negative 5% in Q1 to negative low teens in Q2 and which reflects continued expansion and in our Roku-branded TV program. We expect to benefit from having implemented multiple operational improvements over the course of the past year, and as a result, forecast our year-over-year OpEx growth rate in Q2 to be down to negative low single digits.

Looking into the second half of the year, we expect normal seasonal spend in sales and marketing or devices which will cause second half adjusted EBITDA to slightly moderate relative to the first half of the year.

Looking at the full year, we expect 2024 year-over-year OpEx growth rate to be in the low single digits when excluding impairment and restructuring charges in 2023.

We continue to see leverage in our operating model with our third straight quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow. We will continue to drive operational efficiency. And as Anthony mentioned, we remain confident in our ability to accelerate the growth of platform revenue in 2025 and beyond.

With that, let's take questions. Operator?

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] And our first question from the line of Cory Carpenter with JPMorgan.

[Cory Carpenter, analyst]

I'm hoping you could expand on the drivers of the platform we excel, you're expecting in 2025 and what you're seeing that gives you confidence in this happening? And then, Dan, a quick follow-up for you. Just could you elaborate on what's embedded in the 2Q revenue guide for the Platform segment?

[Anthony Wood, executive]

Cory, this is Anthony. I'll be happy to talk about that. So for some context before I start, I'll just start by noting that last year, we grew platform revenue to $3 billion. Last year, also, of course, we focused on operational efficiencies. And like I just said, this year, we're directing -- I'm directing more of my attention that my team is correcting more of their attention towards accelerating softer revenue growth in 2025. And there's a lot of opportunity to do that on our platform. But I'll just highlight 3 key areas where I see a lot of opportunity where we are increasing our focus. First is the Roku home screen. And by the home screen, I mean not just, of course, the actual home stream, but the UI, the user experience of URCs when they turn on their TV and they use to kind of find something to watch. So the home screen is a big area, programmatic ad capabilities and also Roku build subscriptions. So talk a little bit more about the Roku home screen. Every day, the Roku home screen reaches U.S. households of nearly 120 million people. That means every day, household of 120 million people turn on their TV and they start their viewing experience, their streaming journey on the Roku home screen. And so that home screen is what a viewer sees before they select an app. And they use that home screen to find something to watch. During that process, they're exposed to promotions, they're exposed to advertising. And they'll see advertising on our home screen before they select an app. They might be select an app that doesn't actually have adds in it. So we have the ability to reach everyone on the platform, not just the people, not just the viewers to select apps with advertising.

But to give you some examples of the kinds of things we're looking at on the home screen, on the home screen today, there's the premier video app we called the Marquee and that traditionally has been a static ad. We're going to add video to that ad. So that will be the first video ad in that we add to the home screen. That will be a big change for us.

We're also testing other types of video ad units, looking at other experiences we can add to the home screen that would be where we can innovate more video advertising. So that's something we're looking at.

Another example, this quarter, we launched the NBA Zone in the Roku sports experience, and the sports experience is a way for viewers to find sports across the platform. It's a way for us to grow our content, both AVOD and SVOD content. It's also a way for us to integrate advertising to that experience.

Another example, we just launched, we just rolled out a personalized content row on the home screen. So this is the first time that we add content recommendations directly on our home screen. It's a big change for us in terms of the home screen, and it will be obviously AI-driven recommendations but it will promote both subscriptions and AVOD content in that row. So there's lots of ways we're working on enhancing the home screen to make it more valuable to viewers but also increase the monetization on the home stream. So that's the home screen.

Another area we're looking at increasing our focus on, and I'm spending more time on is programmatic ad capabilities. So we recently switched our programmatic strategy to be more focused on third-party platforms and expanding our relationships with third-party platforms, including DSDs, expanding what we can offer advertisers. From building out the relationships. We're also increasing the expertise in-house and the talent we have in house splits programmatic advertising.

And I think one example of how this will be useful is if you look at the Roku Channel, took the channel in Q1 was the #3 app on the Roku platform. I mean that's pretty impressive. That's the #3 app after Netflix and after Q2, and engagement in the Roku Channel is up 66% year-over-year, but there's a lot of opportunities to close the gap between engagement in the Roku Channel and [indiscernible] Roku Channel, programmatic ad capabilities are on the way. We intend to do that.

And then the third area, another third example of an area that regard there's lots of opportunities to continue to build monetization and subscriptions. Now We've talked about in the past that we had various teams throughout Roku working on subscriptions. We've reorganized them into one team. We've reallocated more resources towards subscription. That team now reports directly to me. And they've already come up with a good list of priorities and ways we can increase our focus on monetization on subscriptions.

One area that we're looking at, of course, is Roku Pay, which is our payments and building service. Roku Pay is very popular, but it can be even more popular. It's great for viewers. It allows them to sign up first subscription in a frictionless way without having to enter the credit card number, and it's great for our business partners because it allows them to reduce friction when a customer is signing up for a subscription.

So those are 3 examples of how we're working on increasing monetization -- and monetizing our home screen programmatic and subscriptions.

And I just think overall, if you just look at the platform advantages we have, we have a brand that viewers love. We have first-party relationships with more than 80 million of screening households. We have deep user engagement, and we're well positioned to continue to reaccelerate platform revenue growth in 2025 and beyond. And then, Dan, do you want to take that?

[Dan Jedda, executive]

Yes. I'll take the second part of that question. Thanks, Cory, for the question. So let me talk briefly about the change in Q1 to Q2 before I answer the question on platform revenue in Q2. So last year, Q1 platform revenue growth rate was negative 1% due to a weak ad market, so Q1 of this year grew 19% as it had a relatively easy comp on a year-over-year basis. Platform growth in Q2 last year was plus 11%. So we went from negative 1% in Q1 to plus in Q2, and that was due to streaming services distribution growth rate increasing primarily from increases in both subscriptions and subscription prices. Advertising revenue growth also improved in Q2 relative to Q1 last year, but SSD was the primary growth driver. And so we faced that challenging comp in SSD in Q2 and really for the rest of the year. We also had a positive 606 adjustment in Q2 and Q3 for platform revenue last year, adding to the difficult comp. So if you exclude that 606 adjustment in Q2 of last year, our outlook for total revenue growth rate would increase by nearly 200 basis points for Q2 of this year. So again, we did see positive growth rate in advertising in Q1 versus the easier comp of Q1 last year, and our Q2 guide assumes a similar year-over-year growth rate in advertising versus what we exited the year at. So we're seeing momentum there. But the comp is the reason for the sequential decline in growth rate from Q1 to Q2.

And to answer your question specifically, of the 10% growth that we guided to for Q2, I would think of platform growth as very high single-digit growth rates, inclusive of 606. And if you were to exclude 606, the 606 adjustment in Q2 last year, we would be in low double-digit growth rate for platform revenue.

[Operator]

Cory did I answer your question?

[Cory Carpenter, analyst]

Yes.

[Operator]

And it comes from the line of Vasily Karasyov with Cannonball Research.

[Vasily Karasyov, analyst]

Thank you, Dan. I would like to follow up on your comments on OpEx. And if you remember on the last quarter call, you made the comment about annualizing Q4, operating expenses and applying a growth rate. And then it looks like this quarter expenses came in lower than we expected. So can you help us understand exactly how we should think about this math for the remainder of the year in terms of quarterly progression. So from this 460 this quarter, how it's going to progress and what the full year estimate should be at this point should be what the reasonable estimate should be? And when you say mid-single-digit growth rates, would you please specify what net range is for you?

[Dan Jedda, executive]

Yes. Thanks, Vasily. I will take that. So we exited the year in a good place with our operating expense profile based on all the work we had done throughout the year and in 2023. And you see that in our Q1 OpEx. And as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, we expect full year OpEx to be in the low single digits from FY '23, excluding the impairment and restructuring charges that we had in FY '23. So let me just be clear on that.

So our GAAP OpEx in 2023 was $2.3 billion. If you exclude impairment and restructuring, our OpEx would have been $2.0 billion, just a little bit above $2.0 billion in FY '23. So think about it as -- and I'll be very clear, not mid-single digits, but think about it as low single digits off of that $2 billion is what we'd expect for full year 2024. That just happens to be down double digits off a GAAP basis. But the way to look at it is off our $2 billion OpEx, excluding restructuring in 2023, we will likely grow low single digits off that number.

We do expect H2 OpEx to be higher than H1. I mentioned that in the prepared remarks. And that's due to normal seasonality that we see in sales and marketing for devices.

[Vasily Karasyov, analyst]

And then Q3, Q4, if possible?

[Dan Jedda, executive]

Again, we'll update that. I've given you a very clear guidance for overall OpEx. We'll update Q3 and Q4 once we close on Q2. But again, think of it low single digits, off that $2 billion.

A lot of that -- I just want to add, like a lot of that timing depends on how sales and marketing ramps in Q3 and into holiday in Q4, which is why I'm not providing specific guidance, but we do have a very good view for full year.

[Vasily Karasyov, analyst]

Okay, makes sense.

[Operator]

One moment for our next question. Comes from the line of Steven Cahall with Wells Fargo.

[Steven Cahall, analyst]

So first on device margins. I was just wondering if you could elaborate on some of the sequential change you're talking about from Q1 to Q2? Is that mix or channel partners or anything else that takes it from the pretty good down 5 in Q1 to that low teens a little weaker in Q2? And with the seasonally higher marketing spend in the second half of the year, is there anything that also is reflected in device margin being weaker in the back half relatedly?

And then secondly, Anthony, just on Roku Pay, it seems like it's a really big focus for monetization of growth. I think you said it's really popular, any sense of what percentage of your streaming households use Roku Pay? And how we think about what the ARPU uplift is when you've got that?

[Dan Jedda, executive]

Yes. I'll take the device gross margin. So again, Q1 device gross margin was negative 5%, which was flat if you exclude the $10 million positive service operator licensing catch-up in Q1 of last year, In terms of like the near term and they change from Q1 to Q2, it really is reflective of the ramp-up in our Roku-branded devices. And again, that's a positive. We are continuing to ramp that up. It is -- we're far more distributed now. We're in 2023. I'm sure Mustafa can talk on that. But we see that as a positive. And we would expect those margins to be in the Q2 ballpark going forward.

Again, as we grow and scale this program, we will improve our cost structure within devices, and those margins will get better. relative to where we are now. But again, we are in the ramp-up stage of Roku-branded TV. And so for the near term, as we ramp that program up, I would expect to see margins similar to Q2.

[Anthony Wood, executive]

Yes. In terms of Roku Pay, I don't think we've broken out the percentage of streaming households to use it. I'll just say that it's the primary that we drive subscriptions on our platform is through having dealers sign up to a subscription service with the ease of using Roku Pay. And a lot of the way we plan and we had improved Roku Pay adoption on the platform is things like integrating SVOD content more throughout the recommendation engine. So for example, like I just mentioned, we're adding a just rolled out the content wrote a recommendation of -- a row of recommended content at the top of our home screen that will include recommendations of SVOD content both entitled and unentitled SVOD content, meaning SVOD content that you have a subscription for, which will increase engagement, which will reduce churn as well as SVOD content. You don't have a subscription for which you then would sign up, get a free trial and a sign up using Roku Pay.

But we also -- so integrating SVOD throughout the platform more, but also the user experience of how easy it is to sign up with Roku Pay also the technicality running a large-scale platform, things like cancellations, there's just a lot of operational focus on improving the numbers in Roku Pay. And so it's a big business and it's -- and there's still lots of opportunities continuing to improve it.

[Operator]

And we come from the line of Ralph Schackart with William Blair.

[Ralph Schackart, analyst]

Just a question on ARPU. It did increase sequentially. So I'm just kind of curious how we should think about that trend line going forward, particularly with some of the monetization efforts that Anthony highlighted? And then just maybe as a follow-up, maybe bigger picture, a couple of quarters now of higher levels of EBITDA and free cash flow, just kind of thinking -- or give some perspective if you could how you're thinking about just philosophically about these levels of sustained profitability.

[Dan Jedda, executive]

Yes. Okay. So I'll take the ARPU question first. We were flat year-on-year on ARPU, and that's, of course, mixing out is to more international than U.S. where we're in our scale and engaged phase. We are starting to monetize in areas like Mexico and key to monetize like Canada U.K. and Germany. But essentially, a lot of our international growth does have a lower ARPU. So we do mix out.

I will say what we do see, which is positive, is one, if I were to just look at U.S. in isolation, we, of course, look at it in multiple ways. And on a trailing 12-month basis, U.S. ARPU was up year-on-year. And when we mix in international, it becomes flat for total company. So that is a positive for us that we are improving ARPU on a trailing 12-month basis. So we also look at it on a quarterly basis, but also what's positive in the U.S. looking at the most recent quarter, which is a positive. So I like the trends I see in terms of on a mix adjusted basis in ARPU, but only mix things out. The ARPU does tend to be flat, just given the growth that we're seeing for Actives International, which again is a good thing as we continue to scale and grow engagement internationally.

Ultimately, we will monetize international. We are monetizing pieces of it, but we'll continue to monetize it, and that should improve international ARPU over time.

[Anthony Wood, executive]

This is Anthony. I'll just comment that we're seeing great progress with our international growth plans. For example, in Mexico, we've now achieved 40% market share for TVs. 40% of TVs sold in Mexico are now Roku TVs, which is a great achievement. And we're also starting to ramp up monetization. I mean it's still early days internationally, but we are starting to make progress is, for example, launching the Roku Channel in Mexico, things like that.

[Unknown Executive]

And I'll just take the second part of that question, Ralph, on EBITDA and free cash flow. So we feel very good about EBITDA. We basically -- we have had our third straight quarter of positive adjusted EBITDA, and we've guided to a positive adjusted EBITDA of $30 million for Q1. So 4 quarters inclusive of the guide. I feel very good. About EBITDA going forward, we said in the letter and Anthony repeated that as we focus on growing the growth rate of Platform in FY '25, we will continue to grow EBITDA and free cash flow. I will say -- I've said it many times, free cash flow. EBITDA -- adjusted EBITDA will give a good proxy for free cash flow as we are CapEx light, and we'll continue to be CapEx light for at least the next year. I'm really, really happy with the capital that we have and how we're focusing CapEx, being CapEx-light. So adjusted EBITDA will be a great proxy for free cash flow. So we see that growing along with adjusted EBITDA.

I will say one thing that we did do in Q1 was something called a net share settlement where when we issued our shares via our restricted stock units in we did offset some of that with net share settlement. So we offset 1/3 of our dilution by essentially issuing less shares and paying the taxes in cash that had the impact of reducing dilution impact of shares issued. That's just one way we utilize cash. And as we continue to focus on free cash flow and free cash flow per share, that will have a positive impact. I do expect us to continue to do that for the rest of this year, which should offset about 1/3 of the dilution of future issuances..

[Operator]

It comes from the line of Rich Greenfield with LightShed Partners.

[Richard Greenfield, analyst]

Anthony, earlier in the call, you touched on this idea of this personalized fee that you've rolled out at the top of Roku. For a long time, Roku was always about apps or clicking on apps, and curious sort of fundamentally what made you take the shift because it seems like a pretty big fundamental shift in how content is sort of surfaced? And as you think about this personalized feed, obviously, as you think about directing the traffic to the Roku Channel, where you sell ads or apps that you could subscribe to. It seems to power to drive revenue. And I'm trying to think about how the interplay between purely what a user might want to watch next versus how it drives revenue at Roku and how you think about that balance going forward? And sort of just how this evolves for Roku would be really interesting to hear.

[Anthony Wood, executive]

Rich, yes. So I think there's a few different things that I think about when I think about doing a content row on the home streams. One is our view of success has been building a custom built operating system for television that has a simple and delightful viewer experience. And we have an iconic home screen that's differentiated and recognizably different than our competitors. And so we don't want to -- we obviously don't want to lose that, and we're not going to lose that.

But also, if you just look at the evolution of what people's view on a platform like growth there. It used to be that a lot of pains spread out a lot of different apps. Now I say, for example, the number -- we said the #3 app on the platform is the Roku Channel, but it's not really an app. I mean, of course, it is an app but it's also more than that. It's content that we have, is fast content, it's pre-used subscription content is AVOD content. It's content that we've licensed directly that we have direct distribution deals with and that we integrate throughout our user experience. One way to access that content just to the Roku Channel app, but you can also access it to more ways to watch in our UI, you can access it to one. You can, there's just lots of different ways. And it's one of the fundamental parts of our business model is to expose content to viewers and drive engagement with content while being disciplined about how much we spend for content, and we can do that by integrating our UI. So it's important for our viewers to expose that content. It's important for our business model to expose content.

So -- and then, of course, this year, last year for me was the year of focusing on operational efficiency. This year, I'm focused on driving platform revenue growth. There's tons of opportunity one of the big ones, it's just the home screen. It's iconic, but it hasn't changed. It's really in a long time. And there's a lot of ways to still keep what's made it great, but also make it useful for our viewers and drive revenue. So that's sort of the different kind of aspects.

[Richard Greenfield, analyst]

Maybe asked another way, do you think ultimately, it becomes a content feed and not an app feed like long term?

[Anthony Wood, executive]

Well, I don't want to design our home screen on the earnings call. But the home screen -- my goal with the home screen is that it will evolve while maintaining its iconic differentiation and while increasing monetization and increasing its usefulness for viewers. And a big part of that strategy for that is some of this content, but it's not -- it's also about what we call experiences, things like the sports experience, which is just to bring up a lot because it's just a good example, it's an experience for helping viewers find source content across the platform. And so I think one of the things we plan to do with the home screen is build more of these types of experiences to make them more useful for viewers and to use those ways to integrate advertising and promotion and sponsorship as well.

So that -- you might see more of that kind of thing integrated into our home screen long term. But no, I don't think it will ever become just content recommendations.

[Operator]

And it comes from the line of Ruplu Bhattacharya with Bank of America.

[Ruplu Bhattacharya, analyst]

I have two, one on active account growth and one on program avenues. On active account growth, do you see more growth in the U.S.? Or do you think that more growth in the international markets? And with respect to the Walmart VIZIO deal, do you see any impact from that, and do you see yourself maybe potentially gaining share at other retailers?

And then the second question on programmatic, Charlie, I wanted to ask you what innings are we in with respect to opening up to other DSPs? And have you seen a meaningful uptick in the fill rates and any impact on CPMs.

[Anthony Wood, executive]

So this is Anthony. And I actually see, I think, three questions in that question. So I'll take the first part. I'll turn it over to Mustafa to talk about Walmart, VIZIO talk about DSPs. I mean in terms of active account growth, we're seeing growth -- I mean, obviously, more future growth out from the U.S. because there's just a lot more humans with broadband households to watch TV outside the U.S. than inside the U.S. And certainly, we're seeing stronger growth at this point outside the U.S. than inside the U.S., but there's still, I believe, plenty of room to continue to grow active accounts inside the U.S. for a while. And of course, there's tons and tons of room to continue to grow active count outside the U.S. which we're making good progress there.

I mean we -- outside the U.S. has been to focus on a small number of specific countries established scale in those countries and then add more countries. So the countries we've been focused on historically are primarily countries in the Americas, like U.S., Mexico, Canada, Brazil,, and then outside of the Americas, primarily the U.K. And we're seeing great progress in all those countries. And then at some point, we'll add other countries as well. So I don't know Mustafa -- I don't if you have anything to add on international or if [indiscernible]

[Mustafa Ozgen, executive]

No, I think you [indiscernible] internationally.

[Anthony Wood, executive]

On VIZIO.

[Unknown Executive]

We spent the last 15 years building America's #1 TV streaming platform and the brand. And our users love work and ask for Roku, and many have multiple devices in their homes. We are becoming the platform where they consume their content. So we know what our customers want, and we are always innovating. Our innovation is not just about launching new features, but also bringing down the cost of the existing features for us. So we have a very strong setup here. We are confident in our ability to continue to grow our streaming households. Obviously, we have a great relationship with all of our retail partners, including Walmart, where we are in shelf space in streaming players, TVs and smart home categories.

Additionally, we have a wide retail distribution in and outside of the U.S. because -- and also deepen it with select partners.

So overall, we have a robust strategy to continue to grow our streaming households with our devices that includes streaming players, our licensed Roku TV program and our Roku-branded TVs that we launched last year.

Over on Roku-branded TVs, we are expanding the product line up with recent introduction of higher-performance TVs with the Roku Pro Series, which complement the existing select [indiscernible]. And we're also expanding its distribution, they are now available at Best Buy, Costco, amazon.com and walmart.com. So these factors in our strong track record and capacity to innovate such as recently announced AI-based quality settings along with our singular focus on streaming and low-cost hardware, that's enabled purpose-built TV operating system gives us confidence that we will keep growing our distribution and streaming households.

[Anthony Wood, executive]

And this is Anthony again. So just back -- the third part of your question was on DSPs. I'll turn it over to Charlie, but just -- I'll just say that, like I said before, I highlighted 3 areas where I think there's a lot of potential for us to increase our focus, drive more growth, accelerate growth in '25 in terms of platform revenue growth. And DSPs are one of the pillars. And we've changed our strategy a bit there to be much more focused on working with third-party partners. And I would say it's pretty early in that sort of adoption of that new strategy, and there's a lot of room to grow. But we've had some early successes, and we're making good progress. That's at the high level to you. I don't know, Charlie, if you want to do that.

[Charlie Collier, executive]

I agree. Thanks, for the question. It's early innings for sure. I think we're getting to the heart of our lineup. There continues to be a ton of opportunity for us with third-party DSPs, and it's an important priority for all of us. As you know, over the last year or so, we made the strategic changes Anthony talked about, and we've been really focusing on incorporating more third-party DSPs.

Now it is going well, but the expanded access to our platform that I talked about on the last call. We now have over 30 partners, not just all the names you think of, by the way, our list includes all the notable partners, but also Instacart and Cox auto and others, you might not immediately have top of mind. So this expansion is part of our commitment to an open ecosystem, which is central to our growth strategy. And I think this will be a key differentiator for us versus large ecosystems.

As I've shared before, we're committed to flexibility and meeting advertisers where they prefer to transact. And this strategic pivot has been paying real dividends.

In the first quarter, we continued to see increase in programmatic ad spend as a percentage of total video investment on our platform, and that underscores for me the strength and appeal of our offering.

Our strategy isn't just about expanding the platform right on. It's also about deepening these relationships, so we're making it easier for advertisers to execute things programmatically with us and easier for them to use Roku inventory. So as we continue to deploy our programmatic strategies, at Roku, I really expect us to continue the action we're seeing and prove that this is really just, as you said, early innings.

[Ruplu Bhattacharya, analyst]

Congrats on the quarter.

[Anthony Wood, executive]

Thank you.

[Operator]

And it comes from the line of Bazinet with Citi.

[Jason Bazinet, analyst]

I just had a quick question on the home screen. I'm always surprised when I turned on my Roku how much sort of white space there is there. My question is, is your sense that this sort of new static to more video-centric is sort of a key unlock to monetize it? Or do you think there's just something about marketers that don't quite understand since it's a pretty unique sort of piece of inventory to buy? In other words, do you think that this shift to video is sort of a key enabler or could it take more time?

[Anthony Wood, executive]

Yes. This is Anthony. I think that to be frank, there's lots of areas we spend our time and our resources on. And our home screen has served us well. There is a lot of white space as part of what makes iconic in different recognizable as part of our brand. But I would say the big change is that you just identified it, it's like, okay, we're going to prioritize resources to work on. There's just a lot of untapped opportunity there, but you asked just one of the areas of opportunity. I mean integrating some for, some content like the recommendation road that we're adding. But there's just lots of areas on the home screen in terms of the potential to both increase engaging UI experiences with our viewers and more deeply integrating promotion and advertising in ways that work for marketers as well as our viewers.

And so no, I think the, adding a video adds at all going to be very popular, well, my prediction is it will be very popular with advertisers. Like I said, it's households with 140 million people in them daily before they enter app. Many of those apps don't have video advertising. So I think it will be popular. And like I said, we're also looking at other ways to integrate video into our home stream, but the video is not the only thing we're looking at. And Charlie, do you think market understand the value of your advertising on the home screen?

[Charlie Collier, executive]

I do. Thanks for the question, Jason. Look, it's really about distinction. We do so much well. But as Anthony said, when you got nearly 120 million people, that's huge distinction in and of itself. And there's a whole class of viewers today who purchase ad-free streaming subscriptions, for example, and they do so. So they see fewer ads, and so it's worth noting and the one thing all viewers see when they turn on their TV is our home screen, and Roku's ads, as you know, are elegantly placed in an uncluttered ad environment. So we literally have the privilege of engaging viewers where they choose what to watch before audiences splinter into apps. And if you think about the problem for marketers, a lot of it is a tension fragmentation. So our home screen is a huge opportunity because it really differentiates.

[Operator]

And it comes from the line of Barton Crockett with Rosenblatt.

[Barton Crockett, analyst]

I was curious about sports, which has been a theme you've been touching on a lot. And in particular, I mean, there's been some media reports perhaps at Roku could be looking at buying some sports rights directly. I think there was something recently about the Major League Baseball Sunday lead off that was on Peacock. And you guys have done something in small scale, I think it was formulary.

I'm just wondering kind of just structurally. Is buying sports rights directly at a meaningful level? Does that make sense for Roku? It would seem to be questionable, given that anyone streaming sports is kind of want to have a deal with you to go through you, I would imagine. So if you can talk to how you see sports rights deals in the role for Roku direct or through kind of third-party kind of intermediaries.

[Anthony Wood, executive]

Yes, this is Anthony. I would say the primary -- so first of all, we don't comment on rumors, speculation, that sort of thing, so I can't comment on that particular rumor. But just your bigger question, like how do we think about sports. I mean, I think the primary way I think about sports is that we're a platform -- there's many different streaming services that we distribute on our platform. Many of them have sports. So and sports, in particular, have been fragmented and viewers just have no idea how to find they want to watch their favorite team or -- so the primary opportunity for us is to help our viewers to be the place they go to help them find a sporting event to watch.

And now that doesn't mean -- we also have content that we license directly. We have rev share content. We have direct license content. We have Roku originals. So -- and we've done like you mentioned for, I mean, the way we think about Roku Originals is a budget of content -- budget for content that we either produce or have more exclusive relationships around.

So -- and there's things like The Rich Eisen Show, which is the Roku, we integrate into the sports zone. We also look at sponsorships for the sports zone. We also think about, well, is that a place where we get the video ads. I mean, so for us, it's really the experience of helping viewers find content. We also do license content and produce content so that also could in the sport zone, but the primary goal is to be just the go-to place for a viewer to find what to watch and to monetize that whole experience when they figure out what they want to watch. And then at the end of watching something that we have licensed directly that we monetize that as well.

[Barton Crockett, analyst]

Okay. That's great. And then if I could squeeze in just one other. I was curious if you could give us an update on what you're seeing in terms of the endemic kind of media marketing partners at this point. There's been a headwind historically, but that businesses. Some ways kind of normally still going through some structural issues with some of the media companies and the cost cutting at the streaming services. So what are you seeing in that kind of market right now for you guys?

[Anthony Wood, executive]

Yes. Charlie will take that.

[Charlie Collier, executive]

Great. Thanks, Barton. Look, we have a large M&E business. And good news is we're really good at it. And Roku is really the best place for marketers to build audiences. So simply put, we build content companies, businesses. I think you used the right word. Obviously, the market has been normalizing versus what it used to be. And so our efforts have been to monetize our home screen in the way Anthony described, and we're now focused on all verticals as we continue to diversify and successfully sell inventory that was previously utilized nearly exclusively by M&E advertisers. So we're also growing engagement and monetization by creating new experiences on the home screen.

Actually, Anthony mentioned The Rich Eisen Show. So a notable example for sharing his BMW sponsorship of The Rich Eisen Show, which included marquee ad on our home screen as well as custom advertising within Roku City. Of course, they sponsored his live show. By the way, he's at the draft this week for us and do a live shows from there. And then our partnership with BMW is growing. So our home screen is being deployed beyond M&E and for the client enhancing brand visibility and engagement.

[Operator]

And it comes from the line Mark Mahaney with Evercore ISI.

[Unknown Analyst]

This is Ian Peterson on for Mark. First question, the Roku Channel streaming hours accelerated second quarter in a row. Can you help us walk through some of the drivers of that? Where within the Roku Channel or what areas of content are you seeing the strong engagement trends from?

And maybe to follow up on the earlier programmatic question, how should we think about the trajectory and mix of video ad revenue coming from third-party programmatic demand going forward?

And last question on advertising. Anything you can call out on the macro front on quarter-to-date advertising trends you're seeing heading into the up-front season, maybe progress on some of the SMB advertiser initiatives you've laid out in attracting them to the Roku platform?

[Anthony Wood, executive]

Ian, this is Anthony. Thanks for all the questions. I see. I think we'll start with Charlie.

[Charlie Collier, executive]

You got it. Thanks, Ian. You asked about TRC. The Roku Channel offers 3 types of content, primarily, AVOD, live TV, and premium subscriptions. And we deliver them via viewing experiences that are integrated throughout. As I mentioned earlier, we've made some strategic programming choices for the Roku Channel. It's strong growth. In first quarter, we made it the #3 app in our platform by both reach and engagement. And as the program type this past weekend, for example, the chronicles open we made it the most watched on-demand title on the Roku Channel with the highest reach and most hours streamed of any title in the history of Roku Channel for its opening weekend. So it shows there's a tremendous opportunity to engage new audiences with power the Roku platform.

Other content, we've briefly also added short-form content, launching clips from popular NBC shows like Saturday Night Live and sports. And by servicing this content throughout the Roku platform, including our home screen, we're able to generate additional reach and engagement.

I mentioned live TV. We continue to expand our line up of fast channels. We recently partnered with the NBA to launch the first-ever MBA fast channel, and that's exclusively on the Roku Channel, and we now have more than 35 sports-focused live TV channels. So all these examples point to the opportunities for us to serve and delight our audiences with the content they love. And I'm going to head into the new front last week, and I look forward to sharing more of what's coming at the Roku Channel. ;

ESPs. Well, look, I talked a little bit about it before. There is a lot of opportunity for us in third party. I mentioned that we expanded our relationships to now over 30 partners. And while we don't break out the mix, I'm really focused on the re-acceleration of platform revenue and the DSP focus will play a huge part in that.

[Anthony Wood, executive]

I mean, DSP is one of the things that will happen with more focused on DSPs as increased diversity of advertisers. And I think I don't want to that will probably help attract more SMB advertisers for the platform as well. Yes, third question number 3.

[Charlie Collier, executive]

No, yes. So you asked about the small, medium-sized, the demand of diversification is something we been focused on for several quarters. I've talked about for a few quarters in a row. And I answered earlier that we're in the early innings. I really think you're going to see the reacceleration of the platform revenue growth into '25 and beyond, and it is both small- and medium-sized businesses, and it's also expanding the work we're doing with so many of our existing partners.

[Operator]

Thank you. And with that, we conclude our Q&A session. I will turn it back to Anthony Wood for final comments.

[Anthony Wood, executive]

Well, thanks to everyone for joining, and thanks to our employees, customers and partners and advertisers.

[Operator]

And with that, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating.