Roku reports 24% Q3 revenue growth with advertising up 23%

The quarter beat Wall Street on almost every line. Adjusted earnings per share came in at $1.20 against a 53-cent consensus, and adjusted EBITDA reached $249m against roughly $163m expected.

The results give Fox, which announced on 15 June 2026 that it had agreed to buy Roku for $22bn, or $160 a share in cash, a first read on the asset it is absorbing. Roku's stock traded at $160.39 on 3 November, just above the offer, so most of the upside from the quarter accrues to the buyer. The US Department of Justice has still to clear the deal, which shareholders of both companies approved last month.

Roku held no earnings call and withheld new guidance, citing the pending acquisition. It said it remains on track for the second-half 2026 forecast laid out in its proxy statement.

Advertising and subscriptions both up 23%

Platform revenue, which bundles advertising and subscriptions, rose 23% to $1.31bn, and platform gross profit rose 27% to $697.1m. Advertising contributed $727.4m, its ninth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. Roku said media and entertainment advertising grew faster year over year than in any quarter in four years. Political spending also exceeded the comparable period of the 2024 presidential cycle, excluding fees from Roku's OneView ad platform. More than 80% of in-stream video ad impressions were sold programmatically.

Subscriptions got help from the World Cup, which drove more than one million sign-ups across Peacock, Paramount+, Fox One and ViX. Roku has also pushed bundles: more than 35 combinations of streaming services. About 95% of Premium Subscription sign-ups came from customers who had never subscribed to those services directly, the company said. Subscriptions gross margin was 40.9%, down roughly 180 basis points year over year, which Roku attributed largely to a mix shift toward Premium Subscriptions. Anthony Wood, founder and CEO, said in the shareholder letter that Roku is "building a diversified and durable business". Operating income rose to $164.1m from $9.5m a year earlier.

Devices revenue grows, margins do not

Devices revenue rose 33% to $193.7m, but the segment posted a gross loss of $48.6m, more than double the $22.9m loss a year earlier. Roku blamed elevated memory costs.

The devices figure covers Roku's own players and Roku-made TVs. It excludes Roku TV models built and sold by OEM licensing partners, which account for the largest share of unit volume. Roku said its own TVs exceeded expectations and approached 8% of US TV unit sales in the quarter, according to Circana retail tracking data cited by the company, a position it built in about three years. Streaming hours reached 39.9bn, up 9%, across more than 100 million households worldwide.

What happens next

Roku said it expects TCL and Hisense partnerships to lift Roku TV sales in the fourth quarter, and that distribution costs for its branded TVs will be weighted toward that quarter. The arbitrage spread narrowed to $1.25 on 2 November from $2.18 the previous Friday, after Fox said it had received all foreign regulatory approvals for the deal.

The next fixed point is the DOJ review. Semafor reported the deal looks poised to clear DOJ review under a consent decree, though the terms are unclear and the department could still change course. Roku and Fox still expect the deal to close in the first half of 2027.