Vizio needs people to buy its TVs, even at a small profit margin, so it can make real money through its homegrown operating system, SmartCast. Like Roku, Amazon Fire TV and Google TV, SmartCast provides access to most major streaming services along with a host of free and paid channels.
Vizio generates revenue from advertising on its home screen and within some free content, and it gets a cut of subscription sales to Netflix and other services when people sign up on their SmartCast TVs. SmartCast accounts jumped 61% last year to 12.2 million. Paul Erickson, an analyst at research firm Parks Associates, said Vizio's biggest advantage in trying to lure advertisers is that it's a popular brand with a big footprint in retail and a major in presence in American homes. In a market that Samsung dominates by units sold, Vizio is consistently a top three vendor.
"If you're trying to reach a TV manufacturer that reaches a lot of the market in the U.S., certainly they are very present," he said.Vizio was founded in Los Angeles 19 years ago by William Wang, a Taiwanese immigrant who famouslyin 2000. By 2007, Wang had turned Vizio into the top-selling flat-panel TV maker. In a video for potential IPO investors, Wang said he was selling Vizio's first plasma TVs at Costco for under $2,000 when rival products were running at over $10,000.
I am so tired or getting marketed to on a daily basis. I just want to relax and enjoy an ice cold CocaCola and my Baconator from Wendys
thanks