TiVo reported total subscriptions as of April 30, 2006 of slightly more than 4.4 million, which represents 33% growth in the subscription base during the past year.
TiVo-owned subscription gross additions were 91,000 for the quarter, compared to 104,000 in the first quarter of last year. This is the second sequential quarter showing a trend in which the percentage of new subscriptions compared to a year ago have improved (third quarter of last year was 23% below the prior year’s third quarter; fourth quarter of last year was 20% below the prior year’s fourth quarter; and the first quarter of this year was 13% below last year’s first quarter).
Standalone churn remained at 0.9% per month, resulting in a net gain of 51,000 in net new TiVo-Owned subscriptions.
Separately, TiVo added a small number of new DIRECTV TiVo subscriptions, primarily subscribers using the TiVo high definition DVR product, currently DIRECTV’s only HD DVR. However, churn on the DIRECTV TiVo subscription base was roughly equal to these new additions, leading to a net number of new subscriptions in the first quarter of 2,000.
In terms of financial results, service and technology revenues for the quarter, which includes recognition of Comcast development revenue of $7.2 million, increased 38% to $55.1 million, compared to $40.0 million for the same period last year. For the quarter, TiVo reported a net loss of ($10.7) million and net loss per share of ($0.13), compared to a net loss of ($857,000), or ($0.01) per share, for the first quarter of last year, due primarily to the costs associated with litigation, more aggressive price offerings, and the expensing of stock options.
“We continue to develop innovative features that clearly differentiate TiVo from the many generic DVRs on the market. We are excited about the newly launched Guru Guide recommendations feature, which allows TiVo users to discover exciting programming and automatically record great collections of shows, recommended by editorial experts at some of the nation’s most authoritative brands. We also recently announced an agreement that will enable broadband video published through Brightcove to be distributed directly to TiVo subscription set top boxes, harnessing the “Wild West” of web video and bringing it to the television set. Ultimately, we expect this will make it as easy to record, view and navigate these videos as any primetime television program,” said Tom Rogers, CEO of TiVo.
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