Stephens believes Vizio has the ability to be competitive on pricing if need be and thinks company would be willing to subsidize pricing to grow the user base
Shares of Vizio (VZIO) are on the rise on Monday as Barron’s says buyers should consider the stock, which completed “upfront” advertising negotiations with commitments up fourfold from last year. In an article over the weekend, Jack Hough wrote that he believes in television, “the dongle is dead, and set makers are suddenly gaining show-business swagger.”
THE DONGLE IS DEAD: Stock buyers should consider newly public Vizio, which completed “upfront” advertising negotiations with more than $100 million in commitments, up fourfold from last year, Jack Hough wrote in this week’s edition of Barron’s. Cheap, small devices like the Amazon Fire Stick (AMZN) or Google Chromecast (GOOGL), along with Apple TV (AAPL) set-top boxes, gave old sets sleek operating systems and provided access to Netflix (NFLX) and more, but that’s changing, the author noted. Only 7% of time spent watching a Vizio set isn’t spent on Vizio’s own operating system. Dongles are out, in other words, the publication said.
“We’ve been working on our operating system, SmartCast, for over seven years now, and have invested hundreds of millions of dollars,” Vizio founder and CEO William Wang told Barron’s. “Our monetization effort really started less than two years ago.” That effort includes selling display ads for the operating system and commercials for Vizio’s free channel bundle, called WatchFree+.
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