Xperi Corp. said Wednesday that it’s approaching 1 million smart TVs in the global market, primarily in Europe, running on its TiVo TV operating system. And despite product delays, the San Jose, Calif. technology company still believes it’s on track to have a total of 2 million in the market by the end of 2024, a seemingly ambitious metric that includes a large deployment in the U.S.
“I think we’re comfortable that around year end, we’ll hit the 2 million mark,” Xperi CEO Jon Kirchner told equity analysts during the company’s Q3 earnings call. (You can hear a replay of the call here.)
Kirchner said two of Xperi’s smart TV original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partners have been slow out of the gate deploying what Xperi calls “powered by TiVo” TVs, primarily to the U.S., with shipments that were supposed to occur in the summertime now earmarked to the final weeks of 2024.
One equity analyst asked Kirchner if Xperi will also meet its goal of having 7 million TiVo-powered smart TVs in the global market by the end of 2025.
Kirchner offered an emphatic “yes,” and also insisted that this could be accomplished even if Xperi doesn’t add to its current list of seven OEM partners. (Kirchner believes more smart TV OEMs will sign on soon.)
Xperi needs its smart TV deployment to ramp up to a level of scale required to foster the development of a lucrative advanced advertising business, based on the TiVo TVOS device ecosystem.
The company said that smart TVs from Panasonic, Argos, Sharp, as well as under numerous Vestel brands, are now “generally available across Europe.”
As for monetization of the TiVo OS, that can’t occur until Xperi can get deployment to scale, Kirchner explained.
Xperi reported a 2% year-over-year uptick in Q3 revenue to $132.9 million, with quarterly net losses coming in at $16.8 million.
Xperi has been laying off workers, including around 100 employees in the third quarter, and divesting operating units, as it looks to coalesce its focus around what it says are three growth areas: connected TV advertising via TiVo TVOS; “in-cabin” automotive entertainment; and its “video-over-broadband” IPTV offering for pay TV operators.
“Each of these markets is set to double over the next five to seven years,” Kirchner said.
Xperi said it ended the third quarter with more than 2.4 million video-over-broadband subscriber households. Xperi’s pay TV unit also executed on a deal signed in June to provide cable cooperative NCTC with a proprietary broadband solution, based on its May 2021 purchase of bankrupt MobiTV, to provide the co-op’s members with a low-cost over-the-top video bundle.