Low-cost TV maker Vizio is going public, seeks $172.5 million IPO

Dieter Holger

Posts: 39   +1

Vizio, an electronics company known for manufacturing affordable TVs, will soon be a publically traded under the ticker symbol 'VZIO,' reports The Wall Street Journal. Vizio aims to raise $172.5 million for its public offering, according to documents filed on Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. But since the filing usually accounts for fees, the $172.5 million IPO goal isn't set in stone.

Vizio, currently based in Irvine, Calif., has said they'll reincorporate their business in Delaware, but the company has not said which stock exchange they'll sell their shares under. Vizio's shares will be divided into Class A and B shares; A shares will be sold to the public, providing one vote per share and Class B shares -- worth 10 votes per share -- will be owned by Vizio CEO William Wang so he can control the company.

The electronics company earned its success by selling low-cost flat panel TVs. In April, TechSpot reported on Vizio's 2015 lineup offering a 43-inch 4k TV starting at $599. Thanks to Vizio's competitive pricing, the soon-to-be public electronics company has snagged around 25 percent of the U.S. TV market, trailing not far behind Samsung. In the first half of this year, Vizio claimed $31.4 million in profit and $1.34 billion in sales, opposed to last year's $25.3 million and $1.26 billion, respectively.

Vizio has also experimented with selling electronics like tablets, laptops and desktops, but all these products have since vanished from their web store.

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Hopefully by doing this their prices won't go up. the next tv I was planning to purchase is going to be a vizio due to their quality thats on par with basically everyone elses but their prices are more fair. I respect companies like this that will give you a quality product that's just as good as the other guys for a much nicer price. keep going vizio :)
 
So will they still be part of LG or totally independent?
Where do these rumors come from? Vizio is a "Frankenstein" TV, they buy almost all of their parts from other brands, but they are their own company.
Their quality is almost as low as their prices!
 
Hopefully by doing this their prices won't go up. the next tv I was planning to purchase is going to be a vizio due to their quality thats on par with basically everyone elses but their prices are more fair. I respect companies like this that will give you a quality product that's just as good as the other guys for a much nicer price. keep going vizio :)
Their quality is garbage, sorry but it is. Also they are only about a 9% margin and if they go public I'm sure the shareholders will want to see higher margins, this might be the beginning of the end for vizio.
 
Actually the quality of their products has increased dramatically. I used to buy nothing but Sony TVs. In 2009 I bought a Vizio after comparing the picture quality to Sony and it was better. I have a few Vizio sets now and everyone who has came over and saw them were amazed because they made the assumption that is was a "crappy" brand. Sure you will get a lemon from every brand every now and then but they do have some good products, some on par with Sony and Samsung.
 
Donutt007 said:
Their quality is garbage, sorry but it is. Also they are only about a 9% margin and if they go public I'm sure the shareholders will want to see higher margins, this might be the beginning of the end for vizio.

It's obvious to me you have never own one. I have and their quality is anything, but garbage.
 
I wouldn't call them garbage.. Both models have developed problems. First one has screen burning problems, or it would take 3 button presses on and off to get the picture to finally load up. Another one the sound would work sometimes, or in just one channel. It also had that problem where it couldn't be on the same surge protector without emitting a high pitched frequency.

Since then, I've gotten a better job and have 2 Samsungs with no problem other than the annoying updating.
 
How is their quality garbage. Had one for almost 5 years without any major issues (only the remote is flaky). Have friends who have the same experience
 
Vizio doesn't have anything to do with LG and never has, it is a completely independent American company.
There actually is no such thing as a, "completely independent American company." At least with respect to electronics. Perhaps military RADAR equipment or high end hospital gear, (CAT scanners), might be made here, and then again they might be from Hitachi or Toshiba..

Apple likes to pass itself off as an "American company" too. Right, good luck with that.

Ostensibly, Vizio is using huge Chinese OEM such as "Funai", for parts and sub-assemblies. Best Buy's house brand, "Dynex", was manufactured in toto by Funai.

In fact, I have an old Dynex flat panel TV, along with a later BB house brand "Insignia". You can use either TV's remote control to work the other.
 
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How is their quality garbage. Had one for almost 5 years without any major issues (only the remote is flaky). Have friends who have the same experience
Which TV brand is "better" is an issue you don't want to tackle.. I expect that some who are complaining the most bitterly, have people at home running their TV 24/7. with possibly the TV tucked into the worst ventilated corner of the room.

As for my choice of brand, whichever promo / leader Best Buy has on sale Black Friday, is what goes into the back of my Jeep. I haven't worn one out yet, but then I live by myself. I cruise along with a paltry daily TV time of from about 8:00 PM to 3:00 AM the next day. If you're counting, 7 hours a day during the week, with the TV getting more time off on the weekend for "good behaviour".
 
$179m is trivial CAPEX at mass production TV scale but they don't make thier own product anyway so they arent buying plants ,plant workers and and so on unless the global technology company owner Le Eco starts making thier TV's but they may only want an IPO pump and dump and some market cycles few times till they milk out the cash they can .

There is always a very good argument and arguments for a tier one brand TV also over the K mart Blue light special brands like maybe Vizio and so on .

IMO Vizio TV can be rubbish depending on the model and who made it compared to the 3 tier one brands and it's just a storefront OD PRC LLC owned company at this moment withwith from what I have read with questionable product quality control and product quality history apparently without legitimate TV manufacturing of thier own and product support and so on but they do design thier own product and some of them probably are not bad at all for the spend if they aren't DOA or defects down the line .

I've read in legitimate AVforums they never seem to execute a significant bug free TV at least at the top two model tiers thay have .... No thanks I'll keep buying tier one brand like Sony .,Samsung and LG noting my latest is an arguably very good 2015 Sony XBR 4K real 10 bit wide color gamut HDR TV in here with a superlative 2013 64f8500 Samsung Plasma out front and another 2013 Sony and LG LED /LCD in the crib and a Sony OLED may come in here later .

Seen the best P and M models in Best Buy & Costco since maybe 2012 and P model did not impress me,but I thought the M model TV was decent for the spend and the picture was decent .

Barring something unknown from Vizio parent co. technology powerhouse Le Eco I predict maybe the marketplace forces will ultimately shake Hisense manufactured TV's in and the Vizio store front company TV's out of the top or nearly top unit sales in the states here anyway ,they already have better HDR product and more coming and thier own factories at large scale .

I been buying Sony XBR and Sony XBR WEGA since 1994 with a XBR Grand wega SXRD in 2005 before I ditched it for my better first Plasma TV. You can sometimes leave a good Sony XBR on nearly 24/7 for maybe nearly a decade sometimes and it will be fine when you get rid of it but don't try that outside of a tier one brand or with a Sony Bravia TV

FWIW they Sony TV sell the mid range Sony XBR TV product as Sony Bravia Pro Displays just for comercial profesional venus and so on with some different software and that implies 24/365 duty cycles at a lot of places which further indicates a very robust thermal design and build quality and parts content like all my Sony XBR TV's have had since 1993 .

Super bowl looked as good as it could such that the variable quality 720p/59.94 broadcast could which was variable from rubbish to decent depending on the variables of the OTA telecast I tuned in here from the local affiliate instead of D*TV .

Note they crushed Super Bowl 8K and 4K camera down to 720p/59.94 > thats homicide

lastly Vizio tracked TV viewers and sold data without consent
https://www.techspot.com/news/68054-vizio-tracked-tv-viewers-sold-data-without-consent.html
 
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There actually is no such thing as a, "completely independent American company." At least with respect to electronics. Perhaps military RADAR equipment or high end hospital gear, (CAT scanners), might be made here, and then again they might be from Hitachi or Toshiba..

Apple likes to pass itself off as an "American company" too. Right, good luck with that.

Ostensibly, Vizio is using huge Chinese OEM such as "Funai", for parts and sub-assemblies. Best Buy's house brand, "Dynex", was manufactured in toto by Funai.

In fact, I have an old Dynex flat panel TV, along with a later BB house brand "Insignia". You can use either TV's remote control to work the other.

Apple is a manufacturing (small scale ) and Huge OD company meaning they design thier product and others make it and more recently some Fabless ARM license > Apple product custom silicon CISC CPU > SoC and so on that maybe TSMC or Marvel can make for them maybe as a hedge against the usual Samsung Silicon or maybe Samsung can make them too . Apple inc. use Intel Core i5/i7 CPU /IGPU on thier Apple PC and maybe some NVidia/GPU ,broadcom wireless and so on and Foxconn is pronably the primary OEM manufacturer . ,

Vizio is an OD design company ,meaning they design thier product , they use various manufacturers like Compal,Wistron and Amtran and maybe Foxconn but not Funai N.A who has some rubbish brand licences like Philips in the states Polaroid,Magnavox ,Emerson and so on noting Phillips /Funi N.A. is nothing at all like the EU Philips better products .

Hisense owns and makes Sharp TV's in the Americas and they make thier own product and HDR OLED TV's and the panels for them and luts of other TV's including more recently ~ since 2010-2012 or so Best Buy Insignia and probably Dynex .

Sony TV is an owned subsidiary of Sony inc. since 2014 .Foxconn does a lot of Sony custom LCD Cell /Panel /lamp assy and TV finished product and various components for Sony TV down to the PC boards , also PS 3/4 & other game devices ,HP PC and MS XBone and so on and Apple product.

Taiwan based Foxonn is the PRC largest net exporter and that is huge .

Samsung Display and Samsung Electronics and TV are wholly separate siblings in the greater Samsung Chaebol structure responsible for thier own EBIT contributions to the greater Chaebol,same constructs for LG Electronics and LG Display within the greater LG Chaebol conglomerate .
 
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Which TV brand is "better" is an issue you don't want to tackle.. I expect that some who are complaining the most bitterly, have people at home running their TV 24/7. with possibly the TV tucked into the worst ventilated corner of the room.

As for my choice of brand, whichever promo / leader Best Buy has on sale Black Friday, is what goes into the back of my Jeep. I haven't worn one out yet, but then I live by myself. I cruise along with a paltry daily TV time of from about 8:00 PM to 3:00 AM the next day. If you're counting, 7 hours a day during the week, with the TV getting more time off on the weekend for "good behaviour".


Right .... some of the Insignia /Dynex and Toshiba-Compal /Sharp-Hisense exclusive Best Buy product TV's are not bad at all for the spend and have plausible pictures .

I have one real decent 40" Best Buy Insignia 2012 CCFL /LCD .with the same exact real decent Samsung SPVA 450 NIT,cd/m2 5000:1 contrast CCFL LCD panel the spendy same size Sony LCD used that year . noting Hisense has been making the Best by Insignia/Dynex more recently and all the Sharp TV's with various panels and they seem to be OK for the spend like the Comal-Toshiba they have


OTOH for my primary TV I been buying Sony XBR and Sony XBR WEGA since 1993 with an XBR 1080p Grand Wega SXRD in 2005 and I got rid of it for my first and better Plasma before the bloody thing got the dreaded SXRD yellow screen or green slime a lot of those had .

OTOH outside of those Sony SXRD bad experiments You can sometimes leave a good Sony XBR LCD old CRT on nearly 24/7with a maybe a weekly thermal break for a few hours for maybe nearly a five years or decade sometimes and it will be fine when you get rid of it but don't try that outside of a tier one brand like Samsung ,LG or Sony XBR >>>> NOT with a Sony straight Bravia TV or any of cheap ones from LG and Samsung.

The average MTBF (mean time between failure ) of an LCD TV panel to 1/2 brightness 24/7 is 5 years continuous duty and any set or panel can fail at any time .

FWIW Sony TV sells the mid range Sony XBR TV product as Sony Bravia Pro Displays just for commercial /professional venus ,digital signage , hotel/hotel lobbies ,airports , medical/dental office and so on and so on with some different software and that implies 24/365 duty cycles at a lot of places which further indicates a very robust thermal design and build quality and parts content like all my Sony XBR TV's have had since 1993 .


I been paying that Sony XBR tax and it's usually spendy but they always have the best pictures by a significant margin to a cheaper TV like a Vizio or a Dynex and so on .

My latest Sony TV in here next to the PC desk on a motion wall mount in my cave is a 2015 4K HDR Triluminos wide color gamut 10 bit panel Sony XBR it's beyond very good with the usual legendary sturdy and solid Sony XBR build quality and meticulous fit and finish second to none with a nice precision and thin blackish metal bezel beyond any other brand TV.

OTOH the spendy LG and Samsung fit and finish arent bad at all and very close to the Sony 4K HDR XBR these days and so are the spitting hairs close spendy Samsung LCD pictures ,

The LG HDR OLED TV is very good in the 2016 superlative range topping realm. I might put a Sony Z1C OLED in here at some point.

My superlative 2013 64f8500 Plasma out front is superb for a 1080p and can humble a lot of 2016 LCD at any resolution but it was spendy also , The rest are a Sony Bravia and LG LED both new in 2013 and TBH the 2013 Sony Bravia is not up to usual Sony standards I'm accustomed to and not the pick of the 1080p litter here .
 
It's obvious to me you have never own one. I have and their quality is anything, but garbage.

That's by far not the the first I have heard of that from what I belive are legitimate sources .Some of them I've seen at friends places prior to mayne 2014 had horrid LCD pictures but I don't know how they were adjusted and none of those folks would probably know how to get a TV needing tweaking right anyway and AFAIK thats the norm with a Vizo more than a tier one brand

I read many times at other credible forums Vizio will not calibrate correctly vis a vis broken CMS subsystems in the TV's .

This 2015 Sony XBR X850C was a snap to calibrate .

Sony,Samsung and LG are the Tier one brands I buy and recommend since 1993 anyway .

I buy Sony XBR for my primary TV since 1993 but recent same level spend Samsung are decent IMO and spitting hairs close picture qual .to most in class Sony .

Noting I have never owned VIzio or been inside a current model or late model I never advise Vizio TV .
I have read a lot of unfavorable what I belive is legitimate source info on Vizio TV and some good also but that was mostly from the product shill reviewers and folks that don't know squat or they are just too cheap to buy Tier one and defend thier choice or they are newish and still working and they would not know a better TV if it ran them over and they always quote the product shill reviewers .

AFAIK TV techs usually hate Vizio . I can bench,diag. and repair TVs and been inside more than a few and there are sometimes differences worth spending for and always with a Sony XBR if you can afford it .

IMO Best Buy Insignia ,B.B. exclusive Sharp models , ( both Hisense ) and Toshiba -Compal all for the low spend folks above K mart blue light special Funai license brand rubbish .

IMO Samsung KU 6290 and 6300 for a better more spendy Tier one 4K SDR, Samsung KS 8000 for Best in class 2016 4K HDR TV that includes not buying the more spendy Samsung KS 9000 instead .
 
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It's obvious to me you have never own one. I have and their quality is anything, but garbage.
Right I only Buy Sony XBR or Samsung noting I own a legendary 2013 Samsung 64f8500 plasma also , 2013 LG LED/LCD for a spare bedroom, the 2015 Sony XBR 4K HDR TV in here , a 2013 Sony 1080p Bravia and a 2012 1080p Insignia that was given to me by someone that bought something better in a Sony 4K HDR TV without the room for the not bad 2012 1080p Insignia CCFL/LCD with an excellent exact 450 cd/m2 Samsung CCFL panel in like the 2012 Sony used it's now in the back sunroom here .

I've seen Vozio low spend rubbish in the stores and at family and friends that were dumb enough to buy them or don't care about picture quality vs spend like a tier one brand provides .

Vizio does not make a TV beyond an OEM design. they are a storefront company owned by a PRC conglomerate now and they never made thier own product anyway or a real HDR 1000 spec or a competitively HDR wide color gamut spec TV ,they are behind the curve even Hisense 4K HDR product is much more technologically capable and advanced than Vizio rubbish and thier dated product lines .

Folks that buy Vizio won't by choice buy or can't afford a better TV like Samsung ,Sony and LG ,that is the Vizio stated corporate mission on record ,they can't compete technologically with the tier one brands by any stretch of the imagination and they still make uncompetitive rubbish note the Vizio current prices to Sony X850D or Samsings .

I think folks should folks know what they get ,beyond that it makes no difference to me and the product may fit some folks needs noting they are often disposable TV and often can't be repaired because parts are often unobtanium even on current & recent models anyway .

again, Instead of Vizio IMO Samsung KU 6290 and 6300 for a better more spendy Tier one 4K SDR, Samsung KS 8000 for Best in class 2016 4K HDR TV that includes not buying the more spendy Samsung KS 9000 instead and at the top Sony X930D/X940D or 9ZD and Sony OLED later and LG OLED now and 2017 Sony OLED ,9ZD and X900,X900E or someting at Samsung HDR LED/LCD or LG HDR OLED
 
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