With today’s launch of the HBO Max app for Roku, Roku’s stock is at a record high, according to Variety. Roku shares were up 4.6 percent around noon today to $340.90 a share.
“We can’t wait to work with our longtime partners at Roku to build on our past successes and bring HBO Max’s best-in-class quality entertainment to Roku’s large and highly engaged audience,” Tony Goncalves, chief revenue officer at WarnerMedia, said in a statement, according to Business Insider.
AT&T’s WarnerMedia owns HBO Max. The news comes one day after Roku made a deal to carry HBO Max, according to Yahoo News. The move is just in time for the Christmas Day premiere of the highly anticipated sequel, “Wonder Woman 1984.” Roku subscribers who also subscribe to the SVOD package will have access to the Warner Brothers film.
The studio’s 17-movie slate for 2021 will also hit HBO Max the same day those films debut in theaters. If there were no deal, HBO Max would not have been able to capitalize on the anticipation around “Wonder Woman 1984” to recruit more Roku subscribers.
Around 12.6 million subscribers have activated HBO Max since it debuted last May. Roku has around 46 million active accounts. They reach about 100 million people, according to company officials. The hope is that adding a large number of subscribers to HBO Max will help generate revenue to make up for the expected loss at the box office next year due to the pandemic.
