Vizio tops 12M active accounts as it plans IPO

U.S.-based smart TV manufacturer Vizio revealed that it has 12 million SmartCast active accounts as it plans an initial public offering.

Along with the user total update for SmartCast, the company’s smart TV operating system, Vizio also disclosed that total hours spent on its platform reached 24 billion (up 117%) and that it took in more than $2 billion in revenue in 2020.

But it’s the active account number that Vizio Founder and CEO William Wang said provides his company with a key opportunity to grow the business.

“We have a lot to get done, but we are off to a quick start. We have cutting-edge products and powerful software. But we need to continually improve the software, and we must also keep up with the latest hardware technology and maintain quality products. At the same time, we have to stay ahead of the curve in predicting trends and figuring out what our customers desire in a portal-like smart TV,” he wrote in a letter to shareholders.

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Vizio said that as of December 1, 2020, it has sold approximately 82.2 million televisions and 11.8 million sound bars over the lifetime of the company, which launched in 2002. Through the acquisition of Inscape in 2015, Vizio has built a targeted advertising and data-based insights business including its proprietary Automatic Content Recognition (ACR) technology.

Most of Vizio’s total net revenue comes from sales of smart TVs and sound bars, but its platform net revenue has grown 304.4% from $36.4 million in 2018 to $147.2 million in 2020. Vizio has grown its adjusted EBITDA from $584,000 in 2018 to nearly $139 million in 2020.

“We believe that Platform+ will be the key driver of our future margin growth and financial performance,” the company wrote in an SEC filing.

Vizio said its primary smart TV competitors are Samsung, Sony, LG, TCL and Hisense. The company’s Platform+, which integrates streaming services like Netflix and Disney, competes not only to be the preferred entertainment hub for consumers but also for a share of the growing OTT advertising space.

“In this respect, we compete against other television brands with smart TV offerings, such as Samsung, as well as connected devices such as Roku, Amazon Fire TV Stick and Apple TV and traditional cable operators, which may provide their own streaming services,” the company wrote. “We compete for advertising spend with these competitors as well as with OTT streaming services such as Hulu and YouTube TV, as such services are able to monetize across a variety of devices and consumers may engage with their content through devices other than our smart TVs.”