Wall Street had its eyes on the Apple event in Cupertino on Monday, and it turns out, one of the big winners was Roku stock.
Shares of the company, which makes smart televisions, and streaming devices, closed the day up nearly 5% after Apple announced that its new TV app will be available on Roku. At one point, Roku shares were up as much as 8% as Apple CEO Tim Cook kicked off the big reveal at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino.
Roku shares are up 109% over the past year.
While Roku had once been Apple TV’s competition, Apple has since embraced allowing some of its content to live on other platforms. The Apple TV app will be available on Vizio, Sony, and LG smart televisions. It will also be available on Amazon Fire TV “in the future,” according to an Apple news release, which did not share a specific date. The app is expected to launch on Samsung Smart TVs this spring.
The Apple TV app will provide content suggestions from over 150 streaming apps, pay-TV services, and the movies and TV shows that are currently available for rent or purchase in the iTunes store.
The Monday event was also Apple’s most star-studded launch ever. Cook was joined onstage by Jennifer Aniston, Jason Momoa, Alfre Woodard, Reese Witherspoon, Steven Spielberg, Kumail Nanjiani and Oprah Winfrey to announce Apple TV Plus, Apple’s new streaming service with original content to rival Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu.
While Apple rolled out the red carpet, details about Apple TV were scarce, other than a promise that more information will be announced this fall.
