Roku Posts 24% Revenue Jump to $1.50 Billion Ahead of Fox Takeover

By Daniel Okafor

Roku grew revenue 24% to $1.50 billion in the third quarter, beating Wall Street expectations and posting net income of $183 million — more than seven times the year-prior figure. Not bad for a company quietly waiting to be acquired.

The streaming platform operator reported total gross profit of $649 million, up 24%. The results landed months before Fox Corp.'s $22 billion takeover, announced June 15, which is expected to close in the first half of calendar 2027.

What drove the numbers?

The Platform segment — Roku's advertising and subscriptions engine — grew 23% year over year to $1.3 billion. Both advertising and subscriptions revenue rose 23%, the company said.

Two categories did the heavy lifting:

• Political advertising again exceeded the comparable quarter of the 2024 U.S. presidential election cycle, matching a pattern Roku first reported in Q2.
• Media and entertainment advertising posted its highest year-over-year revenue growth in four years, "as media companies invested on the Roku platform to promote their content and services," Roku said.

That M&E rebound matters. Studios and streamers had spent years trimming marketing budgets; the Q3 figure suggests they're back to buying home-screen real estate, such as the Disney+ "Toy Story 5" takeover Roku showcased.

Devices told a different story. Segment revenue jumped 33% to $194 million, but Roku runs that business at a deliberate loss to seed households. The Devices operating loss came to $48.6 million — a negative 25% gross margin — driven primarily by higher memory costs. Cheap sticks, expensive chips.

Total streaming hours across the platform reached 39.9 billion, up 9% year over year.

Why no earnings call?

For the second consecutive quarter, Roku skipped its earnings call and issued no financial guidance, citing the pending Fox acquisition. Shareholders got a letter instead.

The pending acquisition, wrote founder and CEO Anthony Wood and Dan Jedda, CFO and COO, "is an extraordinary opportunity to accelerate our vision, allowing us to scale faster and innovate more aggressively for viewers, partners and advertisers."

The executives added: "We are building a diversified and durable business by focusing on monetization initiatives: deepening integrations with third-party advertising platforms, growing Roku-billed subscriptions, and enhancing the Roku Experience. With our open platform, we help our content partners attract and retain audiences, and we offer advertisers the ability to reach viewers at scale, all while providing viewers with an outstanding streaming experience."

Wood, who built Roku into the dominant TV operating system in the United States, won't exit at the close. He will take an ongoing role at the combined company and join the Fox board.

What comes next?

The deal's completion in the first half of 2027 will test whether Fox can turn a hardware-agnostic advertising platform into a complement to its Tubi streaming business. Until then, Roku has signaled it will keep reporting without guidance — leaving investors to read shareholder letters and quarterly arithmetic.