TiVo Posts 19% Rev Gain, Cites Global Opportunities

tiVo DVR maker TiVo Inc. posted a 19% revenue gain to just over $61 million, while reporting a nearly $20 million loss for the company's second quarter, ended July 31.

 

But the quarter was a lot sweeter than results from ongoing business operations would indicate. It also received a $300 million payment from Dish Network, the first installment on a $600 million plus award stemming from TiVo's successful patent infringement suit against the TV satellite operator.

And there's more litigation to come: Two trials are set to begin in the fall, pitting the company against AT&T and Verizon in separate patent infringement cases. TiVo said that with the Dish payment, it now had $628 million in cash and short-term investments on hand.

For the first six months of the company's fiscal year, revenues were down 5% to $107 million, while net income totaled $119.4 million versus a $29.5 million loss for the same period in 2010.

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"In just a short period of time, we have repositioned our company to be a full provider of hardware and software solutions," said TiVo CEO Tom Rogers on a conference call with analysts, according to a transcript provided by Seeking Alpha. In addition to DVRs, the company now provides a suite of services that enable VOD, interactive TV and audience measurement, among other offerings.

TiVo also had some success growing its subscriber base through agreements with cable and satellite operators, both in the U.S. and abroad. This week, it announced a new agreement with Grande Communications, a cable operator in the Southwest, with 150,000 subscribers. And a deal with Virgin Media in the UK was recently activated.

The details of the launch of a DVR service for DirecTV are expected to be announced soon, the company said.

"The international market, in particular, is a great opportunity for TiVo because there are hundreds of millions of TV subscribers, whose pay TV providers are going to need to transition to advanced television over the next few years," said Rogers, adding that TiVo is having "meaningful dialogue" with a number of other overseas cable TV operators.

With the recent focus on the value of technology patents, Rogers told analysts that TiVo is now taking steps to maximize the valuation of its entire portfolio of intellectual property. The company has roughly 600 issued and pending patents across the spectrum of consumer electronics, said Rogers.

The company believes it has "one of the more advanced patent portfolios in these fields. We'll continue to evaluate how to get the most," out of them, he promised.

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