Why You Can Trust CNET Roku passes 50 million active users as it races to catch Amazon
Amazon last month touted over 50 million active users on its Fire TV devices.
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Roku is celebrating a new milestone as it battles with Amazon to be the top streaming platform. In a blog post on Wednesday, Roku said it hit 51.2 million active accounts in the three-month quarter ending Dec. 31, up by approximately 14 million accounts in 2020. In addition, Roku said its users streamed 58.7 billion hours of content in 2020.
Roku and Amazon are seemingly neck and neck when it comes to being the dominant streaming platform. Last month, Amazon said it now has more than 50 million active users on its Fire TV devices. The online retail giant revealed the milestone alongside the rollout of an update to the Fire TV user interface.
In the past, Roku said it defines an active account as one that has streamed content in the last 30 days, and a single account may include streaming on multiple devices with multiple individuals in the household. Amazon has said it measures active users by the number of user accounts streaming to Fire TV devices in one month.
In addition to its new active user count, Roku also revealed some other tidbits from 2020. The top searches on Roku in November and December were for the holiday movie Elf, staring Will Ferrell. The company also said the Roku Channel reached households with an estimated 61.8 million people in the fourth quarter of 2020.
Roku is also giving away 50 Roku Ultra devices to mark the milestone. People who are interested can see the full details on Roku's sweepstakes page.
