TiVo stock spikes upward as analyst give it a 'buy' rating.

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http/money.cnn.com/2005/05/24/technology/tivo/

Tivo spikes on buy rating, $16 target
First Albany likes the outlook for the maker of digital
video recorders, despite losses.
May 24, 2005: 5:56 PM EDT

NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - TiVo's stock rallied Tuesday after an analyst at
First Albany initiated coverage of the company with a 'strong buy'
rating, setting a price target of $16.

TiVo (Research) stock jumped about 18 percent after rising as much as 25
percent earlier in the session. The shares closed Monday at $5.60.

The maker of digital video recorders (DVRs) has never had a profitable
year. In the latest quarter, the Alviso, Calif.-based company posted a
net loss of $33.7 million, equal to 41 cents a share.

In his report, First Albany analyst Richard Baldry cited anticipated
solid growth in the sector and TiVo's DVR partnership with Comcast as
the main factors behind the rating. He projected that growth in the
sector would continue at its current pace of 125 percent a year.

"We believe that TiVo's strategy of subsidizing its hardware to
accelerate its growth and solidify its long-term market share is as
strong one," Baldry said in his report.

"TiVo has already established itself as the leading vendor in this new,
fast-growing consumer electronics category. Rather than viewing TiVo as
a new hardware provider, however, we believe that the company's true
underlying value is centered around its recurring service model."

More than 3 million U.S. homes currently have TiVo digital recorders, he
noted.

 

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http/news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050527/bs_nm/tech_tivo_earns_dc_1&printer=1

Tivo net loss narrows, stock rises

By Franklin Paul Fri May 27, 1:31 AM ET

TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq:TIVO - news), a developer of television recording
technology, on Thursday posted a significantly narrower quarterly loss
on increased subscribers and lower costs, and the stock rose 19 percent.

TiVo, whose digital video recording (DVR) service lets users pause live
TV and save massive amounts of programing, also said it expects to be
profitable by the fourth quarter of its fiscal year, which ends in
January 2006.

For the first quarter ended April 30, it posted a net loss of $857,000,
or 1 cent a share, compared with a net loss of $9.1 million, or 11 cents
a share in the year ago period.

Service and technology revenues for the quarter increased 59 percent to
$40.0 million. Total revenue, including hardware sales, climbed to $46.9
million, from $34.5 million.

Analysts were expecting a loss of 9 cents a share, on revenue of $38.4
million, according to Reuters Estimates.

TiVo added a total of 319,000 subscribers in the quarter. So-called
"TiVo-owned" customers, whom the company gains outside of its
partnership with satellite TV provider DirecTV Group Inc. (NYSETV -
news), rose by 72,000. In all, TiVo ended the quarter at 3.3 million
subscribers.

"It was a very good quarter, with a very bullish outlook about the
future," said Hudson Square Research analyst Daniel Ernst, adding that
TiVo executives appear very confident about its subscriber growth,
distribution and profitability plans.

The rosy results come only months after some analysts said they doubted
TiVo's future as a viable enterprise, due to growing competition from
cable providers and its expensive drive to boost subscribers. Since
then, the company has reeled in spending and signed a key distribution
deal with Comcast Corp. (Nasdaq:CMCSA - news), the No.1 cable TV provider.

The company said its spending on expenses such as rebates, which help
lower the cost of units that customers buy at retail stores, fell to
$3.6 million, from $5.0 million.

SUBSCRIBERS UP, SPENDING DOWN

Wall Street analysts said they were impressed by the solid growth in
subscribers, whose recurrent fees of up to $13 per month increase TiVo's
revenue.

"They were in line with their subscriber guidance and spent a lot less
than they expected, so they are getting some efficiencies on their
marketing," said analyst Rob Sanderson of American Technology Research.

On a call with analysts, chief executive Michael Ramsay spoke
optimistically about TiVo's burgeoning advertising software system,
which the company believes may be attractive to other cable providers.
However, he did not announce any new deals.

"We've got advertising capabilities for DVR that are unique," he said.
"We have the potential ... to make this a standard across the entire
industry."

Looking ahead, TiVo said it sees second-quarter growth of 40,000 to
60,000 "TiVo-owned" subscribers, and a total increase of 200,000 to
260,000 new users.

In addition, it narrowed its fiscal 2006 guidance to a loss of $10.0
million to $20.0 million, from its previous range of $10 million to $25
million, and reiterated its range for service and technology revenues to
$155.0 million to $165.0 million.

Michael Ramsay, who said earlier this year that he would step down as
CEO once a new one is found, said TiVo is still searching. In the
meantime, Ramsay told analysts on a conference call he feels "fully in
charge."

TiVo shares climbed to $8.00 on the Inet electronic brokerage, from its
Nasdaq close of $6.94.

 

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http/biz.yahoo.com/cbsm-top/050527/99d435b7ee2151494b86ccdd3606916d.html?.v=1
TiVo soars on results
TiVo Inc. shares (NasdaqNM:TIVO - News) rallied 14% to $7.92 in
pre-market trading on Instinet after the pioneer in home digital-video
recording posted a narrower quarterly loss, thanks to
lower-than-expected payments of customer rebates.

Brokerage Piper Jaffray however, told clients that the stock has already
come "too far, too fast" and the firm downgraded the company to
underperform.

Piper noted the stock has risen more than 50% over the last 10 days, and
said it believes this appreciation is unwarranted due to the continued
decline in the growth of TiVo-owned subscribers and the company's
increasing reliance on cable and satellite providers.

 

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http/www.fool.com/News/mft/2005/mft05052704.htm

* The Motley Fool Take * TiVo Rising

By Rick Aristotle Munarriz (TMF Edible)
May 27, 2005

These are the days when TiVo (Nasdaq: TIVO) shareholders will want to
rewind and play over again and again. The stock shot up last night after
the company posted a quarterly report that featured a much smaller loss
than Wall Street was expecting on a much stronger top-line showing.

TiVo's transformation from a clunky hardware provider to a dominant
entertainment software licensing company continues. Service and
subscription revenues soared by 59% to $40 million, while hardware sales
fell to the point where they are now making up less than 15% of the
company's net revenues.

Yes, selling fewer boxes is a good thing now that companies like Comcast
(Nasdaq: CMCSA) and DirecTV (NYSE: DTV) are looking to pay TiVo
royalties for providing its software functionality on third-party
digital video recorder boxes. The shift in the revenue mix is the reason
that gross margins have more than doubled over the past year. The stock?
Well, it has also more than doubled since bottoming out in February.

 

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http/www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/05/27/BUG95CUO1J1.DTL&type=printable

TiVo subscriber drive pays off
Alviso company almost in the black despite rebate offer
- Benny Evangelista, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, May 27, 2005

TiVo Inc. faces increasing competition and still hasn't turned a profit,
but the digital video recorder pioneer said Thursday it came closer than
ever to the break-even point during the first quarter, thanks to its
efforts to lure new subscribers.

The Alviso firm, which has routinely posted net losses in the tens of
millions, sharply trimmed its net loss for the quarter ending April 30
to $857, 000, or 1 cent per share. Its bottom line received a
greater-than-expected boost when new subscribers failed to redeem about
$5 million worth of rebate offers.

The quarterly result compares with a net loss of $9.1 million for the
same quarter one year ago, and blew away estimates of Wall Street
analysts, who expected TiVo to lose 11 cents per share. TiVo's
first-quarter revenue for fiscal 2006 were $46.9 million, up from $34.5
million a year ago.

The company released its earnings after the close of trading on
Wednesday. Shares in TiVo rose 22 cents to close at $6.94 on the Nasdaq
Stock Market, but in after-hours trading, TiVo stock soared an
additional 15 percent to $7. 98.

TiVo Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Mike Ramsay said the company's
controversial strategy to spend money on marketing to boost its
subscriber base is paying off. "We're managing the business growth to
make sure we achieve the goal of sustainable profitability," he said in
a conference call with analysts. "This is a rapidly growing market."

TiVo helped pioneer digital video recording, which allows subscribers to
record TV programs on a hard drive. Digital video recording also enables
a host of functions not possible with analog video tape, such as the
ability to pause and rewind a TV program while it is still being broadcast.

TiVo, however, lost $79.8 million last year as it embarked on an
expensive campaign of advertising and equipment rebates to increase its
subscriber base.

TiVo added 319,000 new subscribers during the quarter, boosting its
total to 3.3 million. The biggest jump came from digital satellite
service DirecTV, which accounted for 247,000 new subscribers during the
quarter and 2.1 million overall.

TiVo has 1.2 million "TiVo-owned subscribers," an increase of 72,000 for
the quarter.

TiVo had been offering rebates of $100 on TiVo boxes, but the company
said a larger than expected number did not redeem the offers. "It's a
good solid quarter without (the lower rebate costs), but this makes it a
great- looking quarter," said Rob Sanderson, an analyst with American
Technology Research of San Francisco.

TiVo, which no longer offers rebates, is forecasting a net loss of $4
million to $6 million for the second quarter.

Analysts still worry about TiVo's overall reliance on DirecTV, because
the satellite TV firm has already announced it plans to market a
competing digital video recorder service later this year. Sanderson
noted that DirecTV can terminate its contract with TiVo in February 2007.

TiVo has agreed to work on software that will bring its service to
Comcast cable customers, although that won't happen until 2006.
Meanwhile, Comcast has quickly become a big player in the digital video
recorder market, gaining 468,000 new subscribers for its own DVR service
so far this year, Sanderson said.

Ramsay announced in January he planned to step down as CEO, but so far,
no replacement has been named. Ramsay said during the conference call
that the company's search for a new CEO is "very definitely under way."

 

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In article <ka-dnQjfLug7twXfRVn-gA@comcast.com>, dated Sat, 28 May 2005
01:23:59 -0700, Joe Smith <joe@inwap.com> wrote:
> http/news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050527/bs_nm/tech_tivo_earns_dc_1&printer=1
>
> Tivo net loss narrows, stock rises
>
> [...]
> The company said its spending on expenses such as rebates, which help
> lower the cost of units that customers buy at retail stores, fell to
> $3.6 million, from $5.0 million.
> [...]

Just goes to show you how an aggressive policy of cheating customers out
of their rebates can help with the bottom line.