Streaming platform Roku said it will eliminate 200 jobs in the U.S., citing “current economic conditions,” cutting about 7% of its overall workforce.
“Due to the current economic conditions in our industry, we have made the difficult decision to reduce Roku’s headcount expenses by a projected 5%, to slow down our opex growth rate,” the company said in a statement Thursday. “This will affect approximately 200 employee positions in the U.S. Taking these actions now will allow us to focus our investments on key strategic priorities to drive future growth and enhance our leadership position.”
As of Dec. 31, 2021, Roku had about 3,000 full-time employees located in 13 countries. In pre-market trading Thursday, shares of Roku were down more than 3%.
Roku joins a wave of other tech and media companies making layoffs recently, including Amazon, Disney, meta, Paramount Global, the CW, Snap, Twitter and Warner Bros. Discovery.
In an SEC filing, Roku said the job cuts will result in charges of approximately $28 million to $31 million, primarily consisting of severance payments, notice pay (where applicable), employee benefits contributions and related costs. The company expects that the majority of the restructuring charges will be incurred in the fourth quarter of 2022 and that the headcount reductions, including cash payments, will be substantially complete by the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2023.
For Q3, Roku beat Wall Street estimates on the top and bottom lines — but it issued a weak outlook amid inflationary pressure and an ad-spending slowdown, warning investors that it expects Q4 total net revenue of roughly $800 million, which would represent a decline of 7.5% year over year.
On the Q3 earnings call on Nov. 2, CEO Anthony Wood said, “This is not a normal holiday season.” The macroeconomic headwinds “are creating a tremendous amount of uncertainty,” and the first thing companies do in that situation is “cancel their ad budgets,” he said. Wood said some large advertisers Roku has worked with in the past “are not spending with anyone” at this point.
In reporting third-quarter results, Roku had said in late Q2 it began taking steps to “significantly slow” the rate of hiring and growth of other operating expenses but said it would take a few more quarters for the opex growth rate to “normalize.”
