What They Say
We published a link last week to an article that reported that Comcast was planning to get into the SmartTV market in the US. The Protocol published an article that looked at the rationale for that move. The firm will supply 43″ and 50″ sets running the firm’s X1 OS and made by Hisense. The sets will be promoted with offers such as free Peacock Premium for a year, which usually costs $4.99 per month.
The blog suggests that the aim is to provide a very simple TV solution for non-technical viewers and the firm has filed for a trademark for the phrase “smart meets simple”. The writer also suggests that the move is an acknowledgement that power is moving away from cable providers and their STBs to SmartTVs. If the company doesn’t have its own set, it may concede the market to the TV makers or Roku, which, the article has pointed out, made $1 billion in revenues from licensing and advertising in the first half of the year.
What We Think
As someone that has never lived in the US, although I’ve visited plenty of times, I often don’t pay as much attention as I should to what Comcast is doing. Wikipedia says that the firm is ‘the second biggest broadcasting and cable television company in the world by revenue (behind AT&T), the largest pay-TV company, the largest cable TV company and largest home Internet service provider in the US, and the nation’s third-largest home telephone service provider’. Of course, size is no guarantee of success, but for many consumers, Comcast will be a ‘known quantity’. The TV market is an established market, so most buyers are late majority or ‘laggards’. Those buyers always hate risk and want to look at the bottom line. The $60 per year taken off what should be a competitive set price from a trusted brand may well tempt them. (BR)
