TiVo “no longer a DVR company”, acquires Cubiware
May 27, 2015
By Chris Forrester
Tom Rogers, president and CEO of TiVo, told analysts that TiVo had moved “way beyond” being just a DVR company. “While the role of the cable operator is still vitally important in all this, the consumer has more of a say than ever, with regard to cord-cutting, unbundling content, streaming services, and delivery from the cloud. TiVo is a player in all those arenas and we’re driving innovation behind all of it to give the consumer what they want and how they want it.”
Rogers was speaking following the company’s Q1 2015 results which showed 5.8 million subs (up 27 per cent y-o-y) and helped by its core cable distribution wholesale clients growing 41 per cent y-o-y, with “significant progress” being made at Virgin Media and Vodafone Spain.
Rogers said that Virgin had committed with TiVo to producing its next-generation set-top box.
As far as its own TiVo subscribers it saw gross additions of 39,000 (up 22 per cent y-o-y).
Meanwhile, TiVo has acquired Cubiware, a provider of cost-effective software solutions for emerging market pay-TV operators.
“Cubiware immediately accelerates our global pay-TV efforts and enables us to more rapidly reach an even larger portion of the international market, which is expected to grow to more than a billion subscribers by 2020,” said Rogers. “Cubiware’s recent growth reflects its strong position in markets that are experiencing rapid pay television expansion. This product expansion complements our current international TiVo and DigitalSmiths product lines, enabling us to deliver a comprehensive portfolio of solutions for video distributors across different distribution platforms — on premise, cloud or hybrid environments. The combination of TiVo and Cubiware is expected to enhance Cubiware’s product offering with a variety of features in the future including advanced search and recommendations, OTT applications, and user interface enhancements that will further distinguish Cubiware products and accelerate customer expansion.”
In addition to developing an enviable track record of delivering high quality, cost-effective solutions for pay-TV operators, Cubiware has also established an important ecosystem of conditional access and set-top-box partners. TiVo will seek to continue expanding these relationships to serve an increasing array of international customers.
Cubiware is based in Warsaw, Poland and has relationships with approximately 40 customers across Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East and Asia, representing approximately 12 million pay-TV subscribers. These include key operators like Columbus Communications (part of Cable & Wireless) and Cablemas (part of Televisa) in Latin America.