Can you believe it, two pieces of positive TiVo news in less then a week! In case you haven’t heard yet, TiVo is planning on entering into the Japanese market as soon as 2006!
TiVo will offer its digital video recording service in Japan as early as next year, possibly by partnering with local companies, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported on Monday, quoting TiVo CEO Michael Ramsay. (ZDNet)
This looks like another opportunity for TiVo to make some revenue. I wonder if this will open up any other markets.
I’m pretty interested to see where this goes. Entering other markets can be extraordinarily difficult and expensive when you have to strike deals with regional carriers. (I mean look how difficult it was in the US with great buzz and lots of time/money. ) They must have been working on this for some time. It leads me to believe that TiVo is heading down the log rabbit hole of carriers, carriers, carriers andmore carriers. I hope they don’t drop great efforts like HME/O along the way.
Japan could be a great market for TiVo, if they wisely solve issues I wrote here: http://selltojapan.blogs.com/sell_to_japan/2005/03/tivo_finally_co.html
They need to jump onto the back of a major cable or satalite provider in Japan. If they can do that, then the skies the limit.
Jack Mehoff
I’m moving to Japan in a couple of months.Please HURRY!! I can’t live without my TIVO. =)
I haven’t heard anything about this since I posted this story. Anybody have any updates?