Roku shares tank despite revenue beat for the third quarter

Roku stock tanked more than 14% in after-hours trading after the company reported Q3 results.

Here's what the company reported, compared with what Wall Street expected, based on a survey of analysts by Refinitiv:

• Adjusted loss per share: 22 cents
• Revenue: $261 million vs $256.9 million, according to Refinitiv consensus estimates

Analyst surveyed by Refinitiv had expected an adjusted loss per share of 28 cents. It was not immediately clear whether the reported loss and expected loss were comparable.

The company reported 32.3 million active accounts, up from 30.5 million during the previous quarter, and an average revenue per user of $22.58 compared to the previous quarter's metric of $21.06.

Roku is targeting international expansion throughout the North and South American markets and expects to launch its first T.V. models in the UK by the end of 2020, the company said in its earnings conference call Wednesday.

The company raised guidance and now expects to bring in $1.11 billion in revenue, at the midpoint of a projected range, for the full year of 2019. That falls right in line with analyst expectations.

Roku expects its recent acquisition of Dataxu to drive revenue growth throughout Q4. Roku bought ad tech company Dataxu in October for $150 million. Dataxu allows marketers to plan and buy video ad campaigns.

Roku doesn't charge subscription fees, but instead focuses on the advertising revenue it earns from partnerships. The company's platform revenue for Q3 increased by 79% from the year ago period, to $179.3 million.

Roku's hardware device revenue increased 11% from Q3 2018 to $81.6 million.

For the third quarter, Roku said users streamed 10.3 billion hours, up 68% from the same period a year ago.

The company faces tough competition from Google's Chromecast and Amazon Fire TV — but says it's ready to work with incoming streaming providers.

In October, the company announced it would host the Apple TV app and Apple TV+ service on its streaming platform.

Disney, AT&T and NBCUniversal are all set to launch their individual streaming services by early 2020.

Scott Rosenberg, Roku's senior vice president and general manager of platform business, said after the company's second-quarter earnings that Roku will benefit from the onslaught of streaming services coming in late 2019 and early 2020, and called Roku an "essential platform" for these companies.

Disclosure: NBCUniversal is the parent company of CNBC.

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