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08-21-03, 09:49 PM
News
TiVo Adds 90,000 Subs in Q2
The Digital Video Recorder service says it will pass one million during the holiday season.
By Phillip Swann
Santa Monica, CA (August 21) -- TiVo said Thursday that it added 90,000 new subscribers in the second quarter, bringing its total to 793,000. And company officials predicted that it would finally break the one million mark during the holiday season.
"TiVo's momentum is accelerating. Compared to last year, we just doubled sub growth in the first half, we'll triple in the second half, and we expect to roll past 1 million subs during the holiday season," said Mike Ramsay, TiVo's CEO.
More than half of TiVo's growth came from the DIRECTV-TiVo combo receiver, which includes a satellite TV tuner and TiVo's Digital Video Recorder service. TiVo added 56,000 DIRECTV subs in the second quarter. (DIRECTV has an equity stake in the DVR service.)
Sales of "standalone" units accounted for the remaining 34,000 new subs.
Bolstered by the numbers, TiVo increased its subscriber guidance, saying it now expects to add 550,000 to 650,000 new subscriptions for the year ending January 31, 2004.
Based on this new subscription outlook, TiVo also slightly narrowed its operating-loss guidance from a range of $27-$38 million to $27-35 million. The company reported a net loss for the quarter of $4.4 million, or 7 cents a share, compared with a 2002 second quarter net loss of $3 million, or 6 cents a share.
TiVo said that future subscription totals also should benefit from its recent licensing deals with Toshiba and Pioneer. The two electronic companies have agreed to add TiVo's DVR service to their DVD recorders.
However, TiVo has yet to license its technology to a cable operator, which has many industry observers and investors concerned. Time Warner, Cox and other cable operators have rolled out their own DVR services, creating the possibility that TiVo's growth could eventually hit a ceiling. Cable TV service is now in approximately 65 percent of U.S. homes.
Although TiVo's stock rose more than eight percent on Thursday, shares dropped approximately 40 percent from mid-July to mid-August. Many analysts attributed the decline to a Barron's article that outlined the cable industry's looming threat to TiVo's long-term success.
TiVo President Marty Yudkovitz said in a Thursday conference call that the company is talking to a number of cable operators, but he did not offer any timetable for closing a deal.
The company also does not have a licensing deal with Echostar, the nation's second leading satellite TV service with 8.8 million customers.
TiVo, which launched in 1999, enables viewers to pause live TV, record up to 100 hours of programming without a videotape, and skip commercials with a fast-forward button.
Phillip Swann is President & Publisher of TVPredictions.com. He can be reached at Swann@TVPredictions.com
TiVo Adds 90,000 Subs in Q2
The Digital Video Recorder service says it will pass one million during the holiday season.
By Phillip Swann
Santa Monica, CA (August 21) -- TiVo said Thursday that it added 90,000 new subscribers in the second quarter, bringing its total to 793,000. And company officials predicted that it would finally break the one million mark during the holiday season.
"TiVo's momentum is accelerating. Compared to last year, we just doubled sub growth in the first half, we'll triple in the second half, and we expect to roll past 1 million subs during the holiday season," said Mike Ramsay, TiVo's CEO.
More than half of TiVo's growth came from the DIRECTV-TiVo combo receiver, which includes a satellite TV tuner and TiVo's Digital Video Recorder service. TiVo added 56,000 DIRECTV subs in the second quarter. (DIRECTV has an equity stake in the DVR service.)
Sales of "standalone" units accounted for the remaining 34,000 new subs.
Bolstered by the numbers, TiVo increased its subscriber guidance, saying it now expects to add 550,000 to 650,000 new subscriptions for the year ending January 31, 2004.
Based on this new subscription outlook, TiVo also slightly narrowed its operating-loss guidance from a range of $27-$38 million to $27-35 million. The company reported a net loss for the quarter of $4.4 million, or 7 cents a share, compared with a 2002 second quarter net loss of $3 million, or 6 cents a share.
TiVo said that future subscription totals also should benefit from its recent licensing deals with Toshiba and Pioneer. The two electronic companies have agreed to add TiVo's DVR service to their DVD recorders.
However, TiVo has yet to license its technology to a cable operator, which has many industry observers and investors concerned. Time Warner, Cox and other cable operators have rolled out their own DVR services, creating the possibility that TiVo's growth could eventually hit a ceiling. Cable TV service is now in approximately 65 percent of U.S. homes.
Although TiVo's stock rose more than eight percent on Thursday, shares dropped approximately 40 percent from mid-July to mid-August. Many analysts attributed the decline to a Barron's article that outlined the cable industry's looming threat to TiVo's long-term success.
TiVo President Marty Yudkovitz said in a Thursday conference call that the company is talking to a number of cable operators, but he did not offer any timetable for closing a deal.
The company also does not have a licensing deal with Echostar, the nation's second leading satellite TV service with 8.8 million customers.
TiVo, which launched in 1999, enables viewers to pause live TV, record up to 100 hours of programming without a videotape, and skip commercials with a fast-forward button.
Phillip Swann is President & Publisher of TVPredictions.com. He can be reached at Swann@TVPredictions.com