Vizo the US brand that shook up the US TV market, taking on brands such as LG, Samsung, Sony and Panasonic, is believed to be looking for an investor or a JV partner after running into financial pressure.
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ChannelNews has been told that the Company is looking for either a capital investment or a joint venture, among the organisations that the Irvine, CA group has been in talks with is Indian conglomerate Tata.
The Irvine based Company, who is facing financial pressure due to retailers changing trading terms and as demand for TV’s decline has to dated sold over 65 million products, including televisions, sound bars and other consumer electronic devices into the USA market.
Tata, who are capitalised at over $134 Billion is believed to be keen on an investment in Vizio because they already own a TV manufacturing plant in India and by adding the volume that Visio can deliver, Tata management believe that they can significantly expand the operations of their TV business globally.
According to sources Vizio has been shopping for financial investment among Asian manufacturers and investment Companies during the past 6 months.
The company was started in 2002 by William Wang, Laynie Newsome, and Ken Lowe with $600,000 and three employees. In 2006 the revenue was estimated around $700 million, and in 2007 it was estimated to have exceeded $2 billion by December 2014 revenues had reached $3.1 billion.
At one stage Vizio held the #1 unit share position in the U.S. sound bar industry1 and the #2 unit share position in the U.S. Smart HDTV industry.
In Australia Vizio was at one stage, distributed by Digital Video Technology a Company that went broke trying to launch the Vizio plasma range of TV’s into this market.
At the time DVT was using a marketing Company called Robot Blonde run by a conman called Emile Scott, who openly lied to media Companies in Australia about the Vizio brand. At one stage he told media Companies that he was acting directly for Vizio in the USA.
At the time DVT was being run by husband and wife team Stefan Wisniewski and his wife Theresa, they went broke owing media Companies and customer’s tens of thousands of dollars.
At the time they told media Companies that Vizio was set to become a major brand in Australia especially in the specialist Pro AV Channel.
Last year Vizio in the USA moved into the specialty A/V channel as pressure mounted in the mass retailer channel.
Late last year the Company announced a partnership with the PowerHouse Alliance, a 12-member, US national consortium of regional distributors serving the specialty retail and CI channels.
Neither Vizio or Tata have commented for this story.
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