Roku

Market leader in U.S. connected TV operating systems and one of the largest CTV advertising platforms globally

Founded in 2002 and headquartered in San Jose, California, Roku is the dominant connected television (CTV) platform in the United States, with its operating system powering tens of millions of streaming devices, smart TVs, and soundbars. The company operates a dual-revenue model: hardware sales of Roku-branded streaming players and licensed OS integrations with TV manufacturers, alongside a rapidly growing platform business that encompasses digital advertising, content distribution, and the Roku Channel. With over 80 million active accounts as of recent reporting, Roku represents one of the largest addressable CTV audiences available to advertisers anywhere in the world. In the AdTech ecosystem, Roku is a critical player as both a publisher and a platform. Its OneView ad platform (formerly dataxu) enables advertisers to plan, buy, and measure CTV and OTT campaigns at scale, leveraging Roku's first-party viewership data. The Roku Advertising Framework (RAF) allows publishers and developers to integrate ads into streaming apps, while Roku's Audience Marketplace gives advertisers access to deterministic, household-level targeting. The company's acquisition of Nielsen's Advanced Video Advertising business and its ongoing measurement partnerships further cement its position as a full-stack CTV advertising solution. Roku competes directly with Amazon Fire TV, Google/Android TV, Apple TV, and Samsung's Tizen platform for OS-level dominance on the television screen. Its competitive moat lies in its independence from major content studios or e-commerce platforms, its scale of first-party data, and its deeply integrated ad tech stack. As linear TV viewership continues to decline and streaming accelerates, Roku is strategically positioned at the intersection of content discovery, audience data, and programmatic advertising, making it one of the most significant infrastructure players in modern video advertising.