It turns out Panasonic is the Japanese company Xperi was referring to last week when during its first quarter earnings report it referenced a sixth smart TV OEM partner for its TiVo operating system.
Also read: TiVo's Long Smart TV OS Slog Marches on, Adds Japanese OEM, Targets 2 Million Active TVs by EOY
Introducing its 2024 smart TV product line this week at an event in Düsseldorf, Germany, Panasonic unveiled a mid-range and several entry-level smart TV model lines that use Xperi's TiVo-branded TVOS.
San Jose, Calif.-based Xperi is a leader in car audio tech. But after purchasing TiVo in late 2019 for $3 billion, the company has set its sites on running down the world's great smart TV OS platforms with an alternative it claims is more cost-effective for set makers who aren't the size of Samsung or LG.
Osaka-based Panasonic, meanwhile, still develops its TVs in Japan, but relies on a double-top-secret manufacturing partner to build its sets. The company has a reconfigured smart TV product line that includes high-end Z95A models loaded with Amazon Fire TV, while its mid-range W70A model sets run on Google TV.
Panasonic now has a third OS option, TiVo, which it's adding to its W60A lower midrange strata, which come in 43-, 50-, 55- and 65-inch configurations and support Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, but lack the actual hardware to pull it off.
TiVo will also power Panasonic's S40A and S45A models, which are HD only and come in 24-, 32 and 40-inch iterations.
The TV's will hit the shelves of European retailers later this year, joining models powered by Samsung's Tizan, LG's webOS, Google TV and Amazon Fire TV.
So yeah, Xperi seems to be doing what Roku CEO Anthony Wood said a year ago was impossible -- enter the smart TV OS business at this stage of the game and build scale.
Also read: Roku CEO Dismisses TiVo TVOS Threat: 'It's Hard to Imagine They Could Gain the Necessary Scale'
Vestel, one of Europe's largest TV suppliers, started Europ shipment of "powered-by-TiVo" sets earlier this year. And Western Euro retailer Argos is now selling TiVo-powered sets made by Sharp under its "Bush" house brand.
As TiVo moves closer to establishing a beachhead in the gateway streaming OS business in Europe, Xperi said there are still plans to deploy the operating platform in North America later in 2024.
The company is aiming to have 2 million active TiVo-powered TVs by the end of the year.
