March 8, 2007
After releasing TiVo’s fourth quarter report yesterday, TiVo CEO Tom Rogers said that the company hopes to soon offer a lower-priced HD DVR: “We will be highly focused this year on moving forward with a lower-priced, mass appeal high-def unit, which will allow us to much better participate in the HD television trend.”
The TiVo Series 3 HD DVR currently carries a suggested retail price of $799, although some retailers are selling it for around $625, which is still pretty steep. especially considering that high-def owners can lease HD recorders from their cable or satellite providers for $10 a month or less.
“The other clear learning at retail is that High-Definition television sets are the most important new consumer electronics item. Given the price of our HD unit, we were not able to meaningfully participate in that trend. This also clearly contributed to lower sales volume compared to a year ago, when this trend was nowhere near as significant,” said Rogers, acknowledging that TiVo’s HD DVR price hurt the company’s chances of generating more subscribers from the ever-growing HD audience.
Rogers did not reveal what price TiVo may stamp on a future HD DVR, but he suggested that a price drop is crucial to future sub growth: “We had a very high price unit there and so our HD product performed at expectations, which were modest given its price,” he said.
TiVo reported yesterday that its net losses had declined ($18.7 million in the fourth quarter compared to $21.1 million in the previous 4Q) but said subscriptions increased just 0.2 percent over the third quarter.