TiVo has struck a deal with Millicom International Cellular, an agreement that marks a sizable win for TiVo in Latin America.
TiVo isn’t going into a lot of detail about the deal, other than noting in this 8-K filing that it will involve “multiple TiVo products."
“On September 21, 2015, TiVo Inc. entered into an agreement with Millicom International Cellular S.A. (MIC) a global provider of wireless and wireline communication services to over 50 million subscribers," TiVo explained."The agreement relates to the deployment of multiple TiVo products and services to MIC-owned pay television platforms in certain Latin American territories.”
Millicon ended Q2 2015 5.23 million cable and digital revenue generating units (RGUs) in Latin America. It also ended ended the period with 31.6 million mobile subs in Latin America and 27.68 million mobile subs in Africa.
TiVoended its fiscal Q2 with 6.03 million total subs (941,000 TiVo-owned, and 5.09 million through MSO partners). The majority TiVo’s subs with MSOs come way of cable partnerships in Europe.
It’s possible that the coming deployment will factor in TiVo’s recent acquisition of middleware company Cubiware. When the deal was announced in May, TiVo called it an “important, strategic step for us internationally,” noting that it would help TiVo expand its presence in 25 countries, including parts of Latin America, Europe, and the Middle East and Asia. Cubiware will enable TiVo to run its platform on digital transport adapters and other lower-cost, non-DVR devices that don’t pack the horsepower of traditional TiVo DVRs. Boxes with Cubiware also will not require TiVo’s full Hardware Porting Kit. Cubiware’s announced partners include Columbus Communications (part of Cable & Wireless) and Cablemas (part of Televisa) in Latin America.
Earlier this month, TiVo introduced TiVo Lite, a platform that uses Cubiware middleware and the Digitalsmiths video search, recommendations and analytics platform that can support STB clients with TiVo’s mobile apps for iOS and Android.
