Roku managed a 1 percent increase in Q1 revenue on sales of $741 million. While sales in is platform segment were down 1 percent, to $635 million, the company had a positive performance on the streaming side, with 1.6 million active accounts added to take it past 70 million. Streaming service distribution, including FAST channels, is part of Roku’s platform services, along with ad sales, media and entertainment promotions and Roku Pay. In Q1, the Roku operating system was again the top-selling smart TV OS, with a record-high 43 percent of TV unit share in the United States.

That’s “more than the next three largest TV operating systems combined,” Roku said in its quarterly shareholder letter. While the company claims to have picked up market share across all sizes, it says it has experienced growth “particularly in the larger-screen segment.”

March marked the debut of the first TVs designed and made by Roku: the Roku Select and Roku Plus Series, sold exclusively through Best Buy and online. Shipments and unit sales were not disclosed.

Roku tallied 71.6 million active streaming accounts at the close of Q1, up from 70 million at the close of Q4.

“The net gain of 1.6 million topped analyst consensus estimates that Roku would add 1.14 million new accounts in Q1,” Variety reports, noting “total hours streamed on Roku’s platforms hit 25.1 billion in the first three months of 2023, up 20 percent year over year (and up from 23.9 billion in Q4).”

That performance amounts to “3.9 streaming hours per active account per day — a record high,” Variety says.

TV Technology observes that despite “generally healthy results, the company continues to lose money, reporting an adjusted EBITDA loss of $69.1 million.”

Roku has been industrious in seeking out new opportunities. This week, it announced a partnership with Instacart that will see the TV platform help consumer-packaged goods (CPG) advertisers measure Instacart orders against ads for the food shopping whether consumers are purchasing products on the online shopping service after seeing an ad on the Roku platform.

“It’s Roku’s latest data sharing partnership, having inked an agreement with Best Buy earlier this year” and “also delved into interactive ads and shoppable TV through partnerships with DoorDash and Walmart, respectively,” Fierce Video reports.

At its NewFronts presentation May 2, Roku plans to emphasize that “advertisers need a new strategy for streaming” because “interactivity is shortening the path from viewing to buying,” as per a sneak preview the company shared with NextTV.