Roku faces a difficult highway to profitability, in keeping with KeyBanc Capital Markets. The agency downgraded shares of the beaten-up streaming inventory to sector weight from obese in a notice to shoppers Monday. Analyst Justin Patterson mentioned Roku’s potential to show a revenue by 2024 seems appears robust and efforts to resolve its points will put stress on the corporate’s enterprise value-to-sales a number of. Patterson famous that Roku’s 2023 and 2024 enterprise value-to-sales multiples of 1.9 occasions and 1.6 occasions are nicely under peer expectations and historic averages of three.7 occasions and three.2 occasions, respectively. “Nonetheless, we consider share losses and lack of profitability warrant a reduction vs. friends,” he mentioned. Among the many causes for the downgrade, Patterson highlighted Roku’s continued lack of related TV advert {dollars} and mentioned present consensus estimates are too excessive, failing to account for the continuing challenges the streaming firm faces. “Roku seems to be ceding market share, and has higher tech debt in its [advertising technology] stack than we envisioned,” he wrote. “As resolving these points requires sustained funding, we consider consensus is just too optimistic on 2023E/2024E income and gross revenue development.” The agency adjusted fourth-quarter estimates and 2022 to 2024 income, gross revenue and EBIDTA estimates to replicate its sentiment shift. Roku shares have plummeted greater than 76% this yr as traders rotate out of development shares and competitors heats up within the streaming house. The inventory fell greater than 2% throughout Tuesday’s premarket. — CNBC’s Michael Bloom contributed reporting