Roku 2025 Developer Summit: Keynote

Welcome to the 2025 Roku Developer Summit. I'm Shadow Math, head of partner management at Roku. I'm excited to kick off this year's event with all of you. First, a big thank you. Your hard work, creativity, and innovation are what makes Roku developer ecosystem thrive. This summit is a chance to recognize your achievements, share new developments, and give you insights you need to keep building amazing apps and experiences. Over the next two days, you'll hear from Roku leaders, engineers across engineering org, product org, business, and advanced development teams. You will have keynotes, presentations, panels, and demos, and plenty of opportunities for you to connect directly with our teams and ask questions. Today we will focus on three things. The first area will focus on the business of Roku. We will look at numbers, success stories, and market trends that show why Roku is the best platform to build on and opportunities ahead for developers like you. The second area we will focus on will be developer experience updates. We are rolling out major improvements to the developer portal, publishing processes, and the developer tools to make your work easier and more effective. We will also share vision for the future of development on Roku. Finally, the team will go over important platform updates. You will get an exclusive look at what's next for Roku OS, the new features and capabilities that will help you create even more compelling experiences for our users. And yes, we have a special announcement in the keynote section. So stay tuned. Each of these updates reflects our commitment to helping you succeed and growing this ecosystem together. By giving you the right tools, platforms, and opportunities, we believe you can push the boundaries of what's possible and deliver incredible experiences to millions of Roku users around the world. So, let's dive in. I hope you leave this summit feeling inspired, informed, and ready to take your Roku development to the next level. Thank you again for being here and welcome to 2025 Roku Developer Summit.

Hello developers and welcome to the Roku Developer Summit. I'm Ted Citadine, senior vice president of streaming services partnerships. So I'm fully aware this is the 2025 Roku Developer Summit. I did want to take us back briefly to the year 2002, 23 years ago. Three key takeaways about that year. Number one, Nickelback topped the music charts, of course. Number two, CSI was the most popular show on television. Apparently, some things never go out of style. And third, and most importantly, that was the year that Roku was founded. So, just at the dawn of the internet age, our founder and CEO, Anthony Wood, had a vision that all television and advertising would be streamed. And his vision was that Roku would become the platform that would connect this new television streaming ecosystem. So that was 23 years ago and we've been waiting all that time for these two moments to arrive. So first and foremost, just as of last month, streaming passed traditional television in terms of total engagement. We've been waiting years for these two lines to cross and they finally crossed and they're not going to uncross going forward. So Anthony's vision 23 years ago that streaming would replace television has finally arrived. The moment that we all knew was happening is now. And second, I've been at Roku for a number of years. And we've often talked about throughout the years if we could just get all of sports on streaming. All the NFL, NBA, NHL, golf, UFC, WWE, all of this could just get available on streaming because some was only exclusively available on traditional television. We thought that would really continue to drive the success of streaming going forward. Well, that moment now this fall is happening as well where all sports will be available streaming over the top. And this is just not a point in time phenomenon. We still have a tremendous amount of growth ahead of us.

First I wanted to talk about cord cutting because there's some question in the industry. Is it flattening? Is it slowing? According to MoffatNathanson, one of the top analysts that follow our industry, cord cutting is actually projected to accelerate. So then 2024, they're estimated to be 68 million households that had traditional cable TV. That's projected to decline at a 13% annual rate. That's accelerating from years past to just 52 million homes that will have cable estimated by the end of 2028. So that is our collective opportunity. That's Roku's opportunity and developers' opportunity as millions of new users will switch to streaming. That's billions of new hours that will be consumed on streaming versus television. That's a tremendous amount of new advertising reach for advertising business supported models and a tremendous opportunity for new subscriptions to emerge. And so we're just getting started in all of this growth going forward. And we believe that we are best positioned with our scale and market position to take advantage of this growth.

Now, you as developers, you know us better than almost anyone else. In fact, I'd argue you know us much better than top media executives in the business today. But as of our last public filing, this was at the beginning of 2025, we had 90 million active accounts on a worldwide basis. And we have a leadership position in not only the United States, but now in Canada and Mexico. And in fact, according to Comscore, we have almost half of total streaming occurs on Roku. And now, in fact, we are penetrated in over 50% of US broadband households. And when you talk about competition, we are clearly and second to none in our belief. In fact, we're five times larger than any cable distributor here in the United States. We're two times larger than any of our streaming competitors. And in fact, according to Comscore, we're larger than Fire TV, Google TV, Apple TV, and Samsung combined in the United States. So, we believe that we are your first and most important stop as you look to build scale and generate revenue in streaming. And that is our collective opportunity, generating revenue, building your businesses in both subscriptions and ads.

Let's start with advertising. If you have ad supported content, whether it's on demand or linear-based and FAST, we believe there's no better opportunity than to work with Roku to generate incremental revenue. Roku Channel as of last month was the number five streaming service in the United States, just behind Prime Video. In fact, we're the number two pure ad supported streaming service in the US. And again, if you have an advertising based business model for your content, we believe that we're here to generate incremental revenue for you. And second, I wanted to focus on subscriptions. You'll be hearing a lot about this from the team. We believe there is no better way than to generate new subscriptions than by working with Roku. So whether you have an app-based subscriptions model or a subscriptions model that allows Roku to sell it on your behalf on a wholesale basis to the market, which we call premium subscriptions, we believe there's no better way to generate incremental subscribers and subscription revenue than by working with us. And in fact, our premium subscriptions business where we sell subscriptions again on behalf of our providers, that's growing six times faster than our app-based subscriptions business. So overall, we have the scale, the market position, the tools, and the audience to make you successful in streaming, whatever model that you may have. I just want to end that with saying thank you. The reason why that we've been successful for all these years, the reason why streaming has become what it is, and the reason why we have such a great position in the market is because of you, our developers. And wanted to thank you for everything that you do and thank you for a great 23 years and looking forward to many years ahead. And so with that, I'm going to pass it to Anastasia Cronin who works in our partner growth team and she's going to discuss some highlights and some market opportunities in the streaming business for you. So again, thank you and thanks for all that you do for Roku.

Hi everyone. Great to be here today. I'm Anastasia Pronin, a director from Roku's partner growth team. My team's focus on helping developers, no matter their business model or strategy, scale on our platform by leveraging Roku's full suite of tools, capabilities, and insights. Importantly, we monitor key trends to help developers capitalize on opportunities or mitigate any headwinds. So, with that, let's dive into what we're seeing. Now, more than ever, consumer wallets are being stretched thin, both due to inflation, of course, but also the steady cliff of price increases across streaming services. And in fact, these increases have actually outpaced both inflation and pay TV increases during the last couple of years. We at Roku have a value focused consumer and we're working with our publishers to help find ways to maximize their dollars. Three key strategies are particularly top of mind. Ad supported or lower-cost streaming, promotional pricing, and bundles.

Let's unpack these a little bit more. Over the past few years, we've talked about the rise of ad supported streaming and the related opportunity in OTT advertising. That momentum has not slowed. In fact, it's only strengthened over the past year. As you can see here, many top streaming services are actually already predominantly ad supported while others are quickly catching up. Roku is playing a critical role alongside our developers in driving adoption of AVOD services or ad supported tiers of SVODs. The latter are actually gaining meaningful share industry-wide. Ad supported tiers made up nearly 50% of subscriptions for services that offer both options as of March 2025. That's a 33% year-over-year increase. And our platform actually over indexes in this area. Now over 50% of subs are Roku or ad supported. And this is actually the highest percentage of ad supported subs across platforms with meaningful growth year-over-year at 25%.

In addition, we're working with publishers who have SVOD or hybrid AVOD models to optimize their promotional strategies. Through Roku Pay, our billing solution, and marketing tools, we're enabling a variety of solutions because we know a one-size-fits-all approach simply does not work. Whether you're focused on driving new trials or signups, addressing seasonal content lulls, or re-engaging lapsed users after a big content moment, we can support your goals. From limited time intro offers to cancel or save offers to automated win-back campaigns, we're helping our partners unlock incremental growth at every stage of the lifecycle. And lastly, bundling is becoming an effective strategy in the streaming industry, and we're working closely with our developers to bring these offerings to Roku Pay. Bundles benefit both users and developers. Of course, for users, it's all about that value and simplicity, getting more content for less, all in one place. And for our developers, bundles drive stronger retention, ultimately leading to more sustainable growth over the long term.

There are some notable examples in the industry. Subs of the Disney Plus Hulu ESPN Select bundle are nearly 60% less likely to cancel than Disney Plus standalone users. And similarly, three-month retention for the Max, Hulu, Disney Plus bundle has really outperformed that of the standalone services. So, we're seeing a wide range of SVOD bundles emerge among streamers. Some are ecosystem plays aimed at helping users stay within a single company's portfolio, and others are really cross-service partnerships that strategically bridge content gaps to offer a more compelling, complimentary streaming package.

In addition to economic pressures, another key industry trend we're seeing is growing user frustration with streaming fragmentation. This is a twofold issue. First, our users are struggling to find something to watch. In fact, the average American spends more than 100 hours per year scrolling through streaming services. That is a staggering amount of time in my view. And second, for users with multiple SVOD subscriptions, managing all of them has effectively become a chore at this stage. Recent survey data internally suggests that the majority of our users agree that managing subscriptions is an important consideration when making purchasing decisions. With over 90 million global streaming households and a significant share of streaming time, our platform is uniquely positioned to reduce these friction points.

Let's start with content discovery. This is a broad challenge we're tackling in a number of different ways. Driving users more directly into content from our home screen is of course a key priority for Roku. But we're also looking at this across specific categories of viewing. Take sports for example. 2025 is shaping up to be a tipping point as more top tier games than ever are landing on streaming platforms. That includes a landmark new NBA deal that marks the first time a major portion of games will live exclusively on a streaming service. And it's not just the NBA. Across the board, streaming services are investing heavily in sports. In fact, they're projected to spend more than 11 billion on sports rights this year alone. That's 23% of all global sports rights, and that's up from just three billion six years ago. This is a big opportunity for Roku, undoubtedly, and for our partners. That's why three years ago, we set out to build a best-in-class sports discovery experience. One that aggregates games across leagues and really directs users to where they want to watch. You'll see this in our sport zone, but also throughout our platform with new features rolling out all the time. And also, it's how we really activate around key moments. Just in the past year, we've run major platform level campaigns for the Super Bowl, March Madness, Paris Olympics, NFL Kickoff, and much more.

But while sports are leading the way, the bigger opportunity is clear, helping users find what they love, whether that's a buzzer beater or a binge-worthy drama. And that benefits every partner on our platform. And of course, when users discover the content they love, we want to help them dive right in, seamlessly launching into your apps and also driving effective monetization. A powerful way we do this is through subscriptions initiated directly on Roku. Last year, we discussed how Roku Pay supports partner growth, unlocking advanced targeting and retention tools. Today, I want to give you a glimpse into what's next, how we're evolving to deliver even greater value. First, we're working to surface subscription opportunities across even more touch points in our ecosystem. This includes our instant signup framework available across both device and web, which helps reduce drop off and ultimately improve conversion. And second, we're building greater flexibility around content and pricing models so you can offer the right product to the right user at the right time.

And finally, we're focused on reducing friction post signup with a long-term goal to give users more seamless control of their subscriptions. Today, we manage tens of millions of Roku billed subscriptions, and we're excited to continue building together toward more frictionless experiences. So, with that, I want to say thank you again for being here today. Your work plays a huge role in making Roku the go-to destination for streaming. I hope you enjoy the rest of the sessions. Take care.

Good morning everyone. I'm David Dundenol, VP of advanced development at Roku and it's a pleasure to be here with you today to discuss the engineering updates at Roku. We've had a great year of innovation and I'm excited to share our progress and vision with you. As we reflect on the past year, it's clear that we've made significant strides in empowering our developer community. This year, we've invested in two major work streams. One focused on the near-term and one on the longer horizon. Let's start with the near-term. These improvements will be landing this year and will continue to roll out in every release next year.

First, we've been hard at work making the SDK and platform faster. Speedups that come to you for free without code changes. These are the kinds of under the hood improvements that make your app snappier and more efficient right out of the box. The changes include faster channel compilation and loading times, improved string handling, and JSON parsing that now uses less memory. Second, we've invested heavily in improving developer tooling to give you more visibility and insight into how your apps run. In the tooling session, you'll see new Perfetto tracing with time series graphs of execution threads so you can finally pinpoint things like the longest rendezvous field observer or why a single frame sometimes takes seconds to render. New RRM object memory and scene graph node resource tracking. New features in the VS Code debugger now with virtual variable displays and more complete stack traces. Finally, in the app performance session later today, you'll hear about two big opportunities. A new async message passing system that can serve as an alternative to rendezvous and new copy reducing APIs to cut down on overhead. These enhancements are about giving you the right tools to diagnose, tune, and build with confidence.

As we look to the future, our vision remains focused on empowering you with cutting edge tools and technologies. Here are the key aspects of our forward-looking strategy. We're committed to streamlining the development process by enhancing our SDKs and APIs, expanding our automated testing and debugging tools, and improving our documentation and learning resources. We're prioritizing performance and user experience by optimizing our OS for faster channel launch times and smoother navigation and enhancing our analytics tools for deeper insights into user behavior and channel performance. We're enhancing Roku Pay to provide you with better monetization options, including new subscription models, more flexible transaction APIs, and improved analytics for revenue performance. We are introducing phased app rollouts to the developer portal. This feature will allow developers to deploy app updates in phases to help monitor app performance early, identify potential regressions, and address them quickly.

Finally, drum roll please, I am excited to announce that we are working on a cloud-based Roku device emulator that Roku developers will be able to use starting in 2026. The emulator will enable developers to develop Roku apps and test them using just a laptop and internet connection. As we move forward, your feedback and ideas will continue to shape our platform. We encourage you to engage with us, share your thoughts, and help us build the future of streaming together. Thank you for your continued passion and creativity. Together, we're not just building channels, we're shaping the future of streaming. We look forward to seeing the incredible experiences you'll create with these new tools and capabilities.

Hi everyone, my name is Tom Charles and I'm the product manager at Roku responsible for our developer portal. Today, I'm excited to share several upcoming feature enhancements designed to improve app stability, minimize the impact of regressions, and provide developers more control over their app releases. First, I'm thrilled to announce that we will soon be introducing phased app rollouts to the developer portal. This feature will allow developers to gradually deploy app updates, starting with a small portion of their install base and scaling up incrementally over 9 days. Phased app rollouts help developers monitor app performance early, identify potential regressions in key performance benchmarks, and if needed, cancel the rollout and revert affected users to the previous stable build version. Developers can choose either Roku's default 9-day schedule, which pauses deployment increases over weekends, or customize their own schedule. This feature will initially only be available through the developer portal UI for apps that go through self-service certification with plans to extend the ability to schedule app releases and phased rollouts to all developers in the future. In the meantime, developers of any app will be able to work with their partner manager to configure a phased rollout schedule.

We're also separating publishing for app package updates and streaming store listings, allowing marketing teams to update things like app posters, descriptions, and genre categories without requiring app certification. Next, we are now offering a web API for publishing new build versions to beta applications. With this API, developers can rapidly deploy different cuts of their apps to the different beta app endpoints that they manage. Whether that be a dev build that contains all the latest changes or a stable build that gets cut weekly for external users. Additionally, we plan on releasing an API for retrieving app crash data. This release is tentatively scheduled for Q4. Developers will be able to use this API to ingest app health metrics into their existing production monitoring tools. Using these two APIs, developers can rapidly identify and respond to regressions. Both APIs have controlled availability at this time. Please reach out to your partner manager if you would like to access these APIs.

Finally, we're further streamlining the Roku search feed certification process. With these changes, developers will be able to validate a second feed URL for live apps without affecting the production feed. Once ready to certify the new feed, developers will be able to directly submit the feed through the developer portal UI, similar to the process for app certification. These enhancements reflect our commitment to empowering developers with tools to create stable, high-quality apps and search feeds. I look forward to hearing your feedback on these improvements and how else we can further optimize the developer portal experience. Thank you.

Hey everyone, I'm Ben Strong and I lead our subscriptions product team. Today, I'm excited to share some of the latest updates to our subscriptions offering. And we'll cover some new developments from our payments platform, all designed to make it easier for customers to discover subscription content, sign up, keep subscriptions active, and expand the way people can pay. Let's start with subscriptions discovery. As you heard from Anastasia, and we'll hear more from Preston and Nila, across the Roku platform, we're investing heavily in discovery of content that will best engage our viewers, whether it be AVOD or SVOD. For viewers that are oriented around subscription content, finding and engaging with their content is critical. While we have subscription content discoverable throughout the platform, we're also testing a subscriptions destination in various forms focused solely on engaging users with their entitled content and introducing content we think a viewer may be interested in adding to their subscription portfolio. This all personalized via our machine learning models that continue to evolve with a goal of increasing engagement and content as well as retention and signups for subscription services. We're excited about the potential for this addition to our Roku home screen and we'll have further updates as we test it.

Next, I'll talk about credit where we're actively testing a variety of campaigns to understand the most effective ways to offer this benefit to the viewer. Credit can be issued to a viewer's Roku account for certain actions like adding a payment method or as part of a larger campaign as a surprise gesture with the intent of encouraging subscriptions around a big event, say the start of the NFL season. Right now, credit is available in the US and Canada with more countries coming. The goal is to make credit a powerful tool to drive signups and reduce churn and give customers an easy reason, free money, to subscribe or keep their subscription.

Next up, payment retries powered by our subscription recovery service. Failed payments are a big driver of passive cancellations. Things like expired cards, bank declines, or daily spending limits. Our system is getting smarter about when and how to retry those payments for a higher success rate. We're continuing to invest in targeting the optimal combination of day of week, time of month, payment method, and bank issuer. All to recover more subscriptions automatically and keep customers connected without having to do anything. Publishers don't have to do anything either. Reducing churn through subscription recovery is one of the many benefits of billing through Roku.

Now, let's talk about multiple methods of payment. In our case, this means giving customers the ability to have a backup payment method on file. If their primary payment method fails, we can instantly try the backup method, preventing failed transactions and reducing churn. This is especially helpful for customers who might not even realize their card expired or their account has insufficient funds. And finally, we're also adding new payment methods to reach more customers. First, OXXO. Popular in Mexico for cash-based payments. Customers can choose OXXO at checkout, get a barcode, and then pay with cash at a local store. It's perfect for markets where card penetration is low. Second, Cash App. Widely used in the US, especially by younger customers. It's not just convenient. We're seeing better success rates than standard debit cards, which means fewer declines and smoother checkouts.

So, that's the update. Increased discovery of subscription content, expanding credit campaigns, reduced passive cancellations with our subscription recovery service, fewer failures with backup payment methods, and more ways to pay. All of this live or in testing. So, keep an eye out for more updates. Thanks, and have a great developer summit.