[8] Outside the U.S., the company operates in Australia,[9] Canada,[10] France,[11] Germany, the U.K.,[12] and Latin American countries including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru.

[13][14] In its initial years, Roku focused on making high-definition video players and launched the first connected TV device to stream Netflix in 2008.

[20][21] Roku was founded in October 2002 as a limited liability company (LLC),[22] by ReplayTV founder Anthony Wood.

[23] The company was founded as a maker high-definition video players, and was funded by Wood himself with money he had earned from selling other businesses, including ReplayTV.

[31] On September 28, 2017, Roku held an initial public offering of stock and began trading on the Nasdaq exchange.

[17] Roku stated in September 2017 that it received a "revenue share" whenever it signed up a new customer for subscription content including Netflix.

[35] In the same year, Roku was also reported as expanding its international reach by launching its streaming players in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama and Peru.

[14] In July 2019, Roku started moving to a new headquarters in San Jose, with plans to vacate offices subleased from Netflix.

[36] In the same month, The Verge cited a "Strategy Analytics" report which showed that Roku was the most popular streaming platform in the United States in 2019, with over 30% share.

[37] In November 2019, Roku announced its acquisition of dataxu video advertising platform, for $150 million in cash and stocks.

In June 2021, CNBC cited Parks Associates data, which indicated that Roku had consistently been the leader among all streaming platforms in the U.S., with Amazon catching up.

[44] In May 2022, CNBC stated that research firm Conviva found Roku to be the market leader in U.S. TV streaming devices, while also reporting a new joint venture between Comcast and Charter.

[46] In November 2022, Digiday referenced another study indicating that Roku held a market-leading 38.99% share of connected TV ad impressions, while also experiencing a slowdown in its advertising revenue.

[48] Another Variety article in the same month cited "TVision data" showing the Roku OS as leading the U.S. smart TV sector with a 36% share.

[51] That same month, Roku was reported to have topped the "CTV open programmatic ad traffic in North America" with nearly 50% market share, after falling by 4% over the preceding year.

[52][53] The company was also reported to have formed advertising partnerships with Best Buy, Cox Automotive, DoorDash, Kroger, Shopify, Spotify and Walmart.

[69] That same month, CNN and The Verge reported that 576,000 Roku accounts were compromised in a cyberattack based on credential stuffing.

[74] Further, viewership data from Nielsen for November 2024 showed that The Roku Channel gathered 1.9% of all U.S. TV use and ranked as the sixth most-watched streaming service, trailing YouTube (10.8%), Netflix (7.7%) and Prime Video (3.7%).

[75] The Roku Channel also held the highest share among all free-ad supported streaming services in the U.S., including Fox's Tubi (1.8%) and Paramount's Pluto TV (0.9%).

[86] It licenses its streaming technology and the Roku OS to set-top box providers such as Sky and Telstra, and television manufacturers such as Aiwa, Daewoo, Element Electronics, Hisense, InFocus, JVC, Magnavox, Philips, RCA, Sansui, Sanyo, Sharp, TCL, Walmart's Onn, and Westinghouse.

[98] According to Variety in September 2019, Roku was introducing soundbar and subwoofer products to "marry TV streaming with smart sound".