• by Wayne Friedman , February 22, 2019

OTT platform Roku continues to show strong revenue growth and big subscriber gains.

For its fourth-quarter 2018, revenue rose 46% to $275.7 million, with platform revenues. Fees from smart TV set makers and advertising were up sharply -- 77% -- to $151.4 million.

Revenues from set-top box devices grew 21% to $124.3 million.

“Our U.S. smart TV market share also continued to grow as 'home grown' TV operating systems continue to become increasingly uncompetitive,” the company said in a note to investors.

Financial results were released after the market close on Thursday.

Roku’s stock rose 5% in after-market trading. Before releasing its financial report, Roku stock closed down 4% to $51.48.

The company now says it has 27.1 million active accounts, up 40% from the fourth quarter of 2017.  It added a total of 8 million accounts in 2018.

In the third quarter, Roku earned advertising revenues near $70 million -- double the revenue of the year-before period. The company has seen strong ad results coming from its Roku Channel.

For the full year 2018, Roku says “monetized video advertising impressions” doubled year-over-year.

Net income was $6.8 million versus $6.9 million in the same period the year before.

Roku expects first-quarter 2019 revenues to be between $185 million to $190 million, with a net loss of $32 million to $28 million. “We remind you that the first quarter is our seasonally softest quarter from a revenue perspective,” the company states.

For all of 2019, net revenue is forecast to grow 36% to $1 billion.