TIVP029: Roku (ROKU): Forgotten Streaming Giant w/ Shawn O’Malley & Daniel Mahncke
The Intrinsic Value Podcast - The Investor’s Podcast Network
Roku's Financial Journey
This chapter examines Roku's financial struggles alongside its evolution into a key player in the streaming market. It highlights the company's revenue strategies and the benefits of its network effects while addressing its reliance on advertising for income.
Shawn O’Malley and Daniel Mahnke break down Roku (ticker: ROKU), an aggregator of digital content in the world of TV streaming, with a footprint in nearly 90 million households. Roku is the gateway to streaming, and its devices have famously turned any TV into a Smart TV, but now Roku does much more than that.
In this episode, you’ll learn why the market has soured on Roku, how much its honeypot of first-party data could be worth, how Roku makes money for driving subscriptions to services like Disney+, how Roku is monetizing its uniquely positioned business, what has powered The Roku Channel’s surge toward ad-supported streaming dominance, plus so much more!
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IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN
00:00 - Intro 01:34 - How Roku is a unique combination of being like a streaming service, device manufacturer, and digital advertising exchange. 03:38 - Why Roku’s financials look so poor and why the market has soured on Roku post-pandemic. 10:21 - How Roku has been able to sustain its massive market share over competitors like Amazon and Google in connected streaming. 21:24 - Why Roku’s intrinsic value is so volatile given small changes in assumptions about its future. 23:21 - What makes Roku’s founder/CEO so special. 51:07 - Why Roku may be sitting on a gold mine of digital real estate. 01:00:01 - The biggest competitive threats facing Roku. 01:08:20 - Whether Shawn and Daniel add Roku to their Intrinsic Value Portfolio. And much, much more!
*Disclaimer: Slight timestamp discrepancies may occur due to podcast platform differences.
BOOKS AND RESOURCES
- Get smarter about valuing businesses in just a few minutes each week through our newsletter, The Intrinsic Value Newsletter.
- Sign Up for The Intrinsic Value Community.
- Business Breakdowns podcast on Roku.
- Roku’s Q1 2025 shareholder letter.
- Jim Collins' book: Good to Great.
- CEO Anthony Wood on CNBC, discussing Roku’s Q4 2024 results.
- Explore our previous Intrinsic Value breakdowns: Uber,Nike, Reddit, Nintendo, Airbnb, AutoZone, Alphabet, Ulta, John Deere, and Madison Square Garden Sports.
- Check out the books mentioned in the podcast here.
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