Roku to Reduce Manchester Office

Roku struggles to gain a foothold in the European market dominated by Apple TVV and Amazon Firestick.

03:47 22 June 2023

US streaming giant Roku is set to downsize its Manchester office amidst its struggle to gain a foothold in a European market dominated by Apple TV, Amazon Firestick and the big integrated smart TV players like LG and Samsung. 

The news comes barely a year after the company moved to Bruntwook SciTech's Circle Square. At the time, Alastair McGeogh, the company's chief and director of software and engineering, said that they were looking to recruit more than 50 software engineers. He added: “[The intention] is to be a collaborative space where well established companies like ourselves and incubators are coming up and having students and graduates mixing and creatives are mixing in sharing ideas.”

Roku, with the help of commercial real estate specialist Colliers, moved to the 115,000 sq ft space at No1 Circle Square in early 2022 and became a neighbour to HVM Catapults, Uber, Octopus Energy and Kalibrate. 

Currenly, Roku remains to be the number one streaming platform by hours streamed and top smart TV OS in the US, serving around 70 million households.