TiVo said it will enter the US smart TV market with TVs from Sharp that are outfitted with the TiVo operating system. TiVo has also partnered with Sharp for smart TVs that are being sold in parts of Europe.
After connecting with Sharp for a lineup of smart TVs for Europe, TiVo has again teamed up with the TV maker for the launch of a new connected TV for the US that is outfitted with the TiVo operating system.
In tandem with the start of this week's CES in Las Vegas, TiVo said it will kick off its smart TV offering in the US with TVs from Sharp. The initial Sharp TV with the TiVo OS for the US will feature a 55-inch QLED screen, three HDMI ports and support for 4K, High Dynamic Range, Dolby Atmos and TiVo+, a free, ad-supported television streaming (FAST) service.
TiVo said the Sharp set should be available to US consumers "as soon as February 2025." That updated timeframe is a bit delayed from TiVo's most recent expectation that it would begin to sell TiVo-powered smart TVs in the US by the end of 2024.
TiVo has yet to reveal its retail distribution partners for the US market and a price for the new TiVo-powered Sharp TV, but confirmed that its first smart TV for the US market initially will be offered through Sharp Home Electronics Company of America.
In Europe, TiVo last year launched a range of Sharp models in the UK starting at 299 pounds sterling (US$372). Sharp's consumer website currently lists four TiVo-powered TV models/screen sizes (43 inches, 50 inches, 55 inches and 70 inches). Sharp also offers TVs powered by other platforms, including operating systems from Roku and Google.
TiVo's move into the US smart TV market will pit it against a wide range of competitors with their own smart TV platforms, including Samsung, LG Electronics, Vizio (now part of Walmart), Roku, Amazon, Google and Xumo, the Comcast-Charter streaming joint venture.
The Sharp partnership for the US "represents a significant milestone for us," Ben Maughan, GM of smart TV and media platform for Xperi, TiVo's parent company, said in a statement.
TiVo's US smart TV debut will follows its earlier launch into most of Europe with an array of TV manufacturing partners, including Skyworth, Sharp, Konka, Argos and Vestel, whose brand partners include Panasonic, JVC, Hitachi and Toshiba along with localized brands in Europe such as Finlux (Scandinavia), Telefunken (Germany) and Bush (UK).
TiVo, a company that cut its teeth on DVRs, cable boxes and streaming devices, has managed to put a small dent in the smart TV market. In November 2024, the company said it had shipped more than 1 million TiVo OS-powered TVs and that it was on target to reach the 2 million mark by the end of 2024.
TiVo has also set a goal to deliver 7 million TiVo-based smart TVs into the global market by the end of 2025 – enough to bring some scale to a part of the business focused on generating revenue from data, advertising services and application distribution. Despite its initial footprint in Europe, TiVo's smart TV-related revenue has yet to turn into a material part of Xperi's business.
Xperi posted Q3 2024 revenues of $132.89 million, up 2% year-over-year. Pay-TV, still the company's largest contributor, generated $81.67 million of revenues, up 35% thanks in part to growth from its IPTV transition/upgrade initiatives.
TiVo also announced this week that 20 cable operators have inked deals to deploy TiVo Broadband, the company's video streaming offering for broadband-only cable operators that integrates third-party premium apps (such as Netflix) and TiVo+, the company's free, ad-supported streaming television (FAST) service. TiVo launched TiVo Broadband last year. Buckeye Broadband, Blue Stream Fiber, Blue Ridge Communications and Bluepeak are among the early adopters of TiVo Broadband.
Editor's note: The story has been updated to include new deployment figures for the TiVo Broadband service.
You May Also Like
.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
