Xperi expects to begin selling TiVo-powered smart TVs in the US by the end of the year. Factoring in smart TVs in Europe, Xperi expects to have about 2 million TiVo TVs in the market by the end of 2024.
Xperi, TiVo's parent company, firmed up its plans to launch its first smart TVs powered by the TiVo operating system at the tail end of this year's holiday buying season.
TiVo OS-powered smart TVs destined for the US market are expected to enter production in late November and emerge at retail around the end of the year, the company said. Speaking Wednesday on Xperi's Q3 earnings call, CEO Jon Kirchner said he expects the company to launch TiVo-powered TVs in the US market with at least two manufacturing partners.
TiVo has yet to offer much detail on specific TV models, pricing and retail partners it will lean on for its entry into the US, a competitive market that includes Samsung, LG Electronics, Vizio, Roku, Amazon and Google, among others. Hot off a new retail deal with Target, Xumo, the Comcast-Charter streaming joint venture, is also trying to make its mark in the US connected TV sector.
TiVo's coming smart TV foray in the US follows initial launches across sizable portion of Europe with several 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).
Kirchner said TiVo's smart TV rollout has been hindered by recent partner delays, but stressed that the rollout pace began to accelerate during the fourth quarter of the year.
Seeking scale
But it's still early days for TiVo as it looks to scale up its footprint in the region. The company said it has shipped north of 1 million TiVo OS-powered TVs so far and is on target to reach the 2 million mark by the end of the year.
Kirchner reiterated a goal to have 7 million TiVo-based smart TVs in the market by the end of 2025. The aim is to establish a footprint that TiVo can monetize with data and advertising services and application distribution.
Kirchner acknowledged that TiVo's smart TV-related revenue is currently "not material" given its relatively small footprint, but he believes the pieces are in place for the financial picture to improve.
"There's nothing out there that would seem to indicate that we won't be able to monetize the engagement and the viewership," he said. "Millions of hours are being consumed on the [TiVo] TVs that are more newly out there."
Xperi's move into the smart TV market ties into a broader plan to extend its reach in the pay-TV arena and in connected cars. The broader goal is to have Xperi software in 20 million "monetizable end points" – comprised of 10 million in homes (via smart TVs and pay-TV platforms) and 10 million cars (via its DTS AutoStage platform) – by the end of 2025.
Xperi also expects to see connected TV/media platform revenues reach $190 million, video-over-broadband/IPTV to exceed $100 million and connected cars to hit $20 million by 2025.
Financial snapshot
Xperi posted Q3 revenues of $132.89 million, up 2% year-over-year.
Its pay-TV unit notched Q3 revenues of $81.67 million, up 35%, as the company saw growth from its core pay-TV business ($61.07 million in revenues) and its newer IPTV initiatives ($20.59 million in revenues).
Xperi ended the period with 2.4 million households using TiVo platforms, and now has a dozen pay-TV operators signed up for TiVo Broadband, a relatively new low-cost content option for the company's operator partners. Xperi recently inked a deal with the National Content & Technology Cooperative, a group that cuts tech and programming agreements for hundreds of independent operators, for the TiVo Broadband offering.
Xperi closed its $80 million sale of Perceive, an AI tech unit, to Amazon in October. Xperi received total proceeds of about $60 million from that deal, Kirchner said.
Xperi reduced its revenue outlook for full-year 2024 – from a range of $500 million to $530 million to a range of $490 million to $505 million. The company attributed that to softness in its core licensing business and anticipated smart TV platform revenues that have been pushed to 2025.
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