Roku

Roku
DeveloperRoku, Inc.
TypeStreaming television
Release dateMay 20, 2008 (2008-05-20)
Operating systemRoku OS
Websitewww.roku.com

Roku (/ˈrk/ ROH-koo) is a brand of smart TV operating systems, smart TVs, streaming devices, and smart home and audio products designed and marketed by Roku, Inc., headquartered in San Jose, California, United States. Roku's smart TV products primarily offer access to streaming media content, including streaming television, from online services.

One of Roku's early products was a digital media player developed in collaboration with Netflix and introduced in May 2008, and it has since released at least 10 generations of streaming players. Roku's products have historically been built around the idea of utilizing low-cost hardware interfaces for over-the-top (OTT) media consumption.[1] Roku, Inc., also licenses its Roku OS operating system as middleware for smart TVs, and as of 2023 manufactures its own branded smart TVs, soundbars and smart home devices. The Roku OS targets streaming TVs or devices as its primary hardware, like Amazon's Fire OS, Samsung's Tizen OS, Google's Android TV OS, and Apple's tvOS.

By some estimates, as of 2022 the Roku OS is the leading streaming TV platform in the US in terms of market share.[2] The Roku OS also holds a noticeable 30.5% share of the global TV streaming hours,[3] whereas the Roku Channel Store has the largest collection of TV channels among all streaming TV platforms, hosting 38,941 channels as of 2023.[4]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference ieee-roku was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "Android TV, Fire TV grew streaming OS market share with new strategies in 2022". www.spglobal.com. Retrieved September 28, 2023.
  3. ^ "Conviva's State of Streaming Q2 2022" (PDF). Conviva. September 2022.
  4. ^ AG, 42matters. "Roku Channel Store Statistics and Trends 2023". 42matters.com. Retrieved September 27, 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)