The UK and Spain may both be technically in economic recession, but this seems to have done little to dampen DVR specialist Tivo’s growth there.
In the UK, Tivo manufactures a box designed for cable TV operator Virgin Media, which added another 242,000 Tivo subscribers early this year to bring the total to 677,000, 18 percent of the subscriber base, and rate of deployment is still rising.
“Virgin Media continues to be a wonderful example of how strategically important our product has been in bolstering pay TV offerings,” said Tom Rogers, CEO and president of TiVo.
TiVo also delivers its service via Spanish cable operator Ono, which doubled the number of TiVo customers over the first quarter of 2012.
At the same time, TiVo has been developing its partnership with UK based Pace, the world’s leading set top box maker by volume, to develop the TiVo-Pace XG1 set-top box, a six-tuner gateway. Rogers said the device would enable operators to use TiVo’s whole-home solutions, including support for traditional and IP services.
The European success was not enough to prevent TiVo shares falling last week after announcement of the results. This was because of a first quarter loss, but more particularly because its forecast for a second-quarter net loss of $28 million to $30 million was worse than the $16 million earlier predicted by analysts.
