Roku rose as much as 9% on Friday after Thursday’s first-quarter earnings report, and the streaming entertainment provider still has room to run, according to leading Wall Street analysts. Roku continues to strengthen its business and benefits from industry-wide tailwinds, the company said. Morgan Stanley reiterated its overweight rating on Roku, while Bank of America maintained its buy rating. Both investment banks raised their price targets on Roku stock to $150, implying a 29% upside from Thursday’s closing price. Roku had revenue of $1.25 billion in the March quarter, up 22% from a year earlier and beating the $1.2 billion expected by analysts surveyed by FactSet. Silicon Valley-based Roku also posted adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $148.4 million, beating analysts’ consensus estimates of $131.3 million. Roku’s second-quarter adjusted EBITDA, revenue, and gross profit estimates also exceeded analyst expectations. “Roku continues to change,” Morgan Stanley analyst Sean Diffley said in a note to clients on Friday. “The beat in the first quarter and the conservative fiscal year 2026 hike leave room for upside, providing a political tailwind (for the second half of the year),” he said, referring to political ads related to the midterm elections on TV. Roku stock is up 28% in the past month, at a 52-week high Friday, but still trades at about a quarter of its all-time high set in 2021. ROKU Year-to-date Mountain Roku stock is up 12% since the beginning of the year. As cord-cutting continues to increase, streaming platforms are pursuing multi-pronged strategies to outsmart their competitors in the streaming wars. Roku, which has a market capitalization of more than $17 billion, is increasing its spending on sports, according to Morgan Stanley. Additionally, over the past few years, the company has secured demand-side partnerships with Trade Desk and the advertising departments of Amazon and Google, allowing it to increase its advertising revenue. “We expect U.S. (connected TV) advertising growth to re-accelerate to approximately 20% in 2026, supported by expanding sports and political budgets, increased streaming ad loads, and a continued shift away from linear TV,” Diffley wrote. Bank of America analyst Brent Navon said Roku’s recent business developments, along with tailwinds from the streaming industry, are likely to pave the way for the stock to continue rising. “Roku has significant scope to continue to grow revenue and revenue,” Navon said in a note to clients Friday.
