Архив метки: SEC

Roku gains 1.6 million active streaming accounts in Q1, warns of continued ad uncertainty

Roku delivered its first-quarter results on Wednesday with better-than-expected revenue and the addition of 1.6 million active streaming accounts in the period. Although the company’s results came in above analyst estimates, Roku told investors that it sees its advertising business remaining challenged.
The company’s revenue for the quarter reached $741 million, up just 1% from the year-ago quarter, and a net loss of $193.6 million.
Notably, the company revealed that it reached 71.6 million active accounts, a 17% year-over-year increase. Streaming hours reached 25.1 billion, up 4.2 billion hours or 20% year-over-year. Average revenue per user fell 5% year-over-year to $40.67.
“Similar to our viewpoint during our last earnings call, we expect macro uncertainties to persist throughout 2023,” the company wrote in a letter to shareholders. “Consumers remain pressured by inflation and recessionary fears, and thus discretionary spend is likely to remain muted. Accordingly, we expect the advertising market in Q2 to look much the same as it did in Q1, with ad spend from certain verticals improving (travel and health and wellness), while others remain pressured (M&E and financial services).”
In its letter, Roku wrote that it was the most popular streaming platform for this year’s Super Bowl with approximately half of all streams. The company notes that of those viewers, 12% started the game through either its Sports experience or a game-related ad.
Roku expects Q2 total net revenue of about $770 million, total gross profit of roughly $335 million and adjusted EBITDA of negative $75 million.
The company’s earning results come a month after Roku conducted a second round of layoffs and let go of 6% of its workforce, or around 200 employees. Roku disclosed the cuts in an SEC filing, explaining that the decision was part of a larger plan to lower its year-over-year operating expense growth and prioritize projects that it believes will have a higher return on investment. The company had laid off 200 U.S. employees back in November, citing economic conditions in the industry.

Roku announces a second set of layoffs impacting 200 employees, or 6% of its workforce

Roku soars past revenue expectations as it bets on streaming devices to boost growth

Roku gains 1.6 million active streaming accounts in Q1, warns of continued ad uncertainty by Aisha Malik originally published on TechCrunch
Roku gains 1.6 million active streaming accounts in Q1, warns of continued ad uncertainty

Roku, Roblox and others disclose their exposure to SVB in SEC filings

The fallout from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank is impacting a range of startups and larger firms including, as we know now from SEC filings, publicly traded companies like Roku, Roblox, Quotient, and others. Roku said in a filing that it had around $487 million held at SVB, representing around 26% of its cash and cash equivalents as of March 10, 2023, as Variety was first to report. Its remaining balance of $1.4 billion is distributed across other large financial institutions, it said.
“At this time, the Company does not know to what extent the Company will be able to recover its cash on deposit at SVB,” Roku’s filing stated. “Notwithstanding the closure of SVB, the Company continues to believe that its existing cash and cash equivalents balance and cash flow from operations will be sufficient to meet its working capital, capital expenditures, and material cash requirements from known contractual obligations for the next twelve months and beyond,” it said.
Roku had just come off a fourth-quarter earnings beat with $867.1 million in revenue compared with Wall St. expectations of $801.69 million, and a fourth-quarter loss of $1.70 a share versus the $1.72 anticipated. However, the company’s Q1 2023 guidance had still been cautious, citing the current macroeconomic environment. Shares have since dropped by over 3% in after-hours trading. Yesterday, Roku announced a partnership with Best Buy and its advertising business.
Meanwhile, gaming platform Roblox said in a filing approximately 5% of its $3 billion cash and securities balance was held at SVB as of Feb. 28, 2023.
“Thus, regardless of the ultimate outcome and the timing, this situation will have no impact on the day to day operations of the Company,” Roblox assured investors. The company’s stock had just been upgraded by Jefferies analyst Andrew Uerkwitz from a hold to a buy, citing the platform’s ability to continue to grow despite near-term concerns over the economy.
The updates are a further indication of how closely connected the failed bank was with the larger tech industry and the further ramifications its closure could have on brand-name firms.
In addition to Roku and Robox, omnichannel digital marketing firm and Coupons.com owner Quotient also disclosed a smaller impact, noting it held $400,000 at Silicon Valley Bank UK Limited, a UK-based subsidiary of SVB.
Space company Rocket Lab USA said it had $38 million in cash, or 7.9% of its total cash as of Dec. 31, 2022, with SVB.
Vimeo said in an SEC filing it holds accounts at SVB with a total balance of less than $250,000, which means it’s insured by the FDIC. “The company believes it does not have exposure to any liquidity concern at SVB. The Company has a well structured and diverse set of banking partners with no bank holding over 25% of its total cash,” Vimeo’s filing noted.
Other companies have been posting to social media and disclosing in filings to assure investors they were not exposed.
For example, SoFi announced in a tweet and in a filing that it has no assets with SVB and its only exposure was a “very small lending facility” that was provided to the company for less than $40 million, which was “unaffected by the FDIC’s receivership of Silicon Valley Bank,” the post read, likely in hope to avoid contagion from this catastrophe.
Streamer fuboTV also filed to inform investors it didn’t hold any deposit or have any investments at SVB.
SVB was closed down by regulators on Friday and will re-open Monday with the FDIC in charge. It said all insured depositors will have full access to insured deposits no later than Monday morning. Deposits are insured up to $250,000 per depositor.

Silicon Valley Bank is being shut down today by regulators

Roku, Roblox and others disclose their exposure to SVB in SEC filings by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch
Roku, Roblox and others disclose their exposure to SVB in SEC filings

Roku soars past revenue expectations as it bets on streaming devices to boost growth

Over a month after Roku announced its first Roku-branded TVs, which will launch in the U.S. in spring 2023, the hardware company reported its quarterly earnings this afternoon, which showed Roku beat its own revenue expectations, reporting a total net revenue of $867.1 million for Q4.
The company previously cautioned investors of a shaky fourth quarter, predicting total revenue at around $800 million, a 7.5% decrease year over year. In Q3, Roku had total revenue of $761 million. Analysts predicted a year-over-year decline of 7% to $804.19 million.
However, the company’s Q1 2023 guidance is still cautious of the current macroenvironment. Roku predicts a total net revenue of $700 million.
Also, Roku recently announced that it surpassed 70 million active accounts globally in 2022, an impressive milestone for the company. It had 65.4 million active accounts in Q3. For comparison, rival Tubi, Fox’s free ad-supported streaming TV service, revealed yesterday that it reached 64 million monthly active users.
Plus, Roku had a 19% year-over-year increase in global streaming hours, with a total of 87.4 billion streaming hours in 2022 and 23.9 billion for the fourth quarter.
Despite the growth in accounts, Roku continued to see operating losses widen to $249.9 million, compared to a loss of $147 million in the prior quarter. Due to the economic challenges, Roku wrote in an SEC filing in November that it planned to cut 200 jobs in the U.S. between Q4 2022 and Q1 2023.
“We plan to continue to improve our operating expense profile to better manage through the challenging macro environment while building on our platform’s monetization and engagement tools and partnerships,” the company wrote in its letter to shareholders. “Through a combination of operating expense control and revenue growth, we are committed to a path that delivers positive adjusted EBITDA for full year 2024. Our platform and industry leadership positions us well for reaccelerated revenue growth as the ad market recovers and the shift to TV streaming continues.”
The company added that Roku’s operating system (OS), which will power the forthcoming Roku-branded TVs, grew to 38% of units sold in the U.S. Q4 2022, per NPD. This means Roku OS continues to be among the top-selling smart TV OS in the U.S. The new Roku-branded TVs, announced last month, were another significant move for the company.
Roku recently closed a few deals with major companies to boost its streaming business. For instance, the company closed a deal with Warner Bros. Discovery, getting 2,000 hours of movies and TV shows, including HBO’s “Westworld,” “The Bachelor,” “Cake Boss” and “Say Yes to the Dress,” among others.
Earlier this week, the company struck an exclusive programming deal with Pocket.watch, a kids and family entertainment studio, to bring more children’s content to the Roku Channel.
Also, Roku partnered with DoorDash earlier this month to give customers a free six-month subscription to DashPass and launched interactive shoppable ads for DoorDash businesses on Roku devices.

Roku ends 2022 with new milestone, tops 70M active accounts

Roku unveils its first-ever TVs designed and built by the company

 
Roku soars past revenue expectations as it bets on streaming devices to boost growth by Lauren Forristal originally published on TechCrunch
Roku soars past revenue expectations as it bets on streaming devices to boost growth

Meta announces legs, Hulu raises prices, and Microsoft embraces DALL-E 2

Hi, friends! It’s time for another edition of Week in Review, the newsletter where we quickly recap the most read TechCrunch stories from the past seven days.
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most read
LEGS: The company formerly known as Facebook held its Meta Connect conference this week, where it announced everything from a $1,500 VR headset to a work-focused partnership with Microsoft. Here’s the full roundup of all the news. The thing Zuckerberg seemed most excited about? His metaverse is getting legs.
Hulu’s price bump: Another year, another Hulu price hike. This week the ad-supported plan got bumped from $7 to $8 per month, while the ad-free plan went from $13 to $15 per month.
Microsoft x DALL-E: AI tools that can generate new images from text prompts are starting to go mainstream, with Microsoft announcing this week that it will integrate DALL-E 2 into at least two of its apps.
OG App gets KO’d: The “OG App” promised to provide an ad-free/suggestion-free Instagram experience more like that of yesteryear. Unfortunately, it didn’t have Instagram’s permission to do so. Instagram owner Meta quickly announced plans to take “all appropriate enforcement actions” against the app, which has now been pulled from both Google Play and the iOS App Store.
Google’s video calling booths get real: Last year, Google announced Project Starline, a wild, experimental “video-calling booth” that uses 3D imagery, depth sensors, and light field displays to make a video chat feel more like an in-person conversation. Until now, Starline booth prototypes were hidden away exclusively in Google’s offices; they’re now expanding that to include “the offices of various enterprise partners, including Salesforce, WeWork, T-Mobile and Hackensack Meridian Health.”
audio roundup
Been busy, and not the commuting/working out/doing housework kind of busy that lets you listen to podcasts while you get stuff done? Here’s what you missed in TC podcasts this week:
On Equity, Natasha and Alex caught up with the incredibly insightful Sarah Guo, who recently launched a $100 million early-stage VC firm after being an investor/partner at Greylock for nearly a decade.
Darrell and Jordan were joined on Found by Attabotics founder Scott Gravelle, who detailed how ant colonies inspired his approach to robotics.
The Chain Reaction crew talked about why the SEC is investigating the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection and what it could mean for the crypto ecosystem.
techcrunch+
Here’s what subscribers were reading most behind the TC+ member paywall this week:
Supliful’s seed deck: “This is one of the best decks I’ve ever seen, despite being butt-ugly and riddled with mistakes,” writes Haje in the latest installment of his popular Pitch Deck Teardown series.
Growth hacking is really just growth testing: 10+ years after the term “growth hacking” was coined, what does it really mean today? Growth marketing expert Jonathan Martinez shares his insights.
Meta announces legs, Hulu raises prices, and Microsoft embraces DALL-E 2 by Greg Kumparak originally published on TechCrunch
Meta announces legs, Hulu raises prices, and Microsoft embraces DALL-E 2

Spotify releases a new exclusive podcast hosted by Kim Kardashian

Today, Spotify released the first two episodes of the new original podcast “Kim Kardashian’s The System: The Case of Kevin Keith,” narrated by reality TV star Kim K and true-crime producer Lori Rothschild Ansaldi. The series will be available worldwide and is free for all Spotify listeners.
The podcast will have eight episodes in total and explore the story of Kevin Keith, who was convicted of a triple homicide in 1994. For 28 years, Keith has been trying to prove his innocence. Kardashian and Rothschild Ansaldi will work with investigators and experts to demonstrate how the legal system is broken, Spotify wrote in its release.
New episodes of “The System” will be released on Mondays.
Kardashian has been open about her thoughts on the flawed justice system and is currently pursuing a career as a lawyer. She passed the “Baby Bar” exam in California and claims to have plans to open her own law firm in the future.
Kardashian entered a deal with Spotify in 2020 to produce and host an exclusive podcast for the music streaming platform. Her podcast deal joins other celebrities who have inked with Spotify as part of the company’s strategy to expand its exclusive audio offerings. Also, in 2020, Spotify closed a deal with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.
“The System” podcast launched on the same day that the SEC charged Kardashian for “unlawfully touting a crypto security.” Kardashian settled the case and paid $1.26 million.

Kim Kardashian charged by SEC for pushing crypto, reaches $1.26M settlement

Spotify releases a new exclusive podcast hosted by Kim Kardashian by Lauren Forristal originally published on TechCrunch
Spotify releases a new exclusive podcast hosted by Kim Kardashian