Streaming Competition Intensifies As TiVO Jumps On Bandwagon

Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) has dominated the streaming market in the past decade. Backed by a solid content portfolio, which included an attractive slate of original productions as well as regional shows, the company’s shares returned a humongous 4560.8% during the same time frame.

However, streaming markets’ evolution along with changing consumer preferences for binge watching, popularized by Netflix, has opened up the market for other companies/platforms in the last couple of years. With new players, both content providers and device manufacturers, entering the space, the streaming market is sure to get much more competitive in 2020.

TiVo (NASDAQ:TIVO) is the latest tech provider to join the crowded streaming market, which saw a slew of announcements in the last few months.

Right from Roku’s (NASDAQ:ROKU) new streaming player lineup, streaming stick devices and upgrades in Roku Express and Roku Ultra, to the launch of Disney’s (NYSE:DIS) Disney+ and Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) Apple TV+, streaming service providers have been vying for the streaming throne.

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) has also enhanced efforts to monetize its Fire TV service. Moreover, HBO Max and Comcast’s Peacock are set to debut this year. Further, China-based iQIYI is expanding its international footprint.

TiVo Stream 4k to Counter Amazon, Google, Roku

In the ongoing CES 2020, TiVo launched its new streaming video platform called TiVo Stream 4k. The $69.99 TiVo Stream 4K is an HDMI dongle designed to compete with streaming devices like Fire TV, Alphabet's (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google Chromecast and Roku Streaming Stick.

One-Year Price Performance

Notably, TiVo’s new streaming platform will bring together live TV and Cloud DVR capabilities from Sling TV app. More importantly, the platform will harmonize with existing online video services, including Netflix, Amazon prime video, HBO, YouTube and more. This will spare viewers the effort to toggle between different apps to watch different shows.

The Sling TV app will be available on the TiVo Stream 4K box, enabling Sling subscribers to easily search for their preferred shows on the TiVo Stream 4K interface. Moreover, a range of shows offered by Sling TV will be displayed alongside the free channels offered through TiVo+.

Additionally, there are no TiVo service fees for recording TV, which is a key positive.

However, TiVo’s interface is very much like that of Roku’s Streaming Stick, Apple TV and Fire TV, which also enable viewers to search directly for content and then open it in the relevant app.

Roku Devices Currently Have the Upper Hand

We believe that the TiVo Stream 4k, which is expected to hit the shelves in April this year, still lags Roku in the streaming devices space. Roku is still at the top of the streaming devices market with the most streaming apps and a simpler interface. At $50, the Roku Streaming Stick Plus is one of the cheapest streaming TV with 4K HDR, whereas the Apple TV 4K and NVIDIA’s Nvidia Shield charge $180 and $150, respectively.

When it comes to value options among the sub-$100, Roku and TiVo compete with Amazon’s Fire TV 4K ($50). The best feature of the device is that it can be controlled with Alexa. In this area, Roku is also not very far behind as it works with Google Assistant. However, Roku’s Google Assistant can't control Netflix, unlike Alexa.

Among the sub-$100 competitors, Google Chromecast Ultra is another player. However, it doesn't have a separate remote or Amazon Video, which puts Roku, TiVo and the others discussed above in a better competitive position.

Conclusion

Growing preference for online streaming services and an increasing number of cord-cutters are driving growth of the streaming media devices market. Besides an increasing number of online streaming services, inflating prices of cable and satellite pay TV is boosting the demand for streaming media devices worldwide.

Per ResearchAndMarkets, the global streaming media devices market is expected to reach $271.8 billion by 2024, at a CAGR of around 16% during 2019-2024.

Keeping this projection in mind, we believe that TiVo, along with other market bellwethers, is poised to benefit from the growing streaming devices space.

Zacks Rank

Currently, Apple and Ahabet carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

TiVo, Roku, Netflix and Amazon carry a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) each.

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