More than 2.34 billion hours of content was watched on VIDAA-powered smart TVs in June, breaking an internal record for the company, a top executive affirmed on Friday.
In a social media post, VIDAA CEO Guy Edri said the number represented “more than quarter of a million years’ worth of streaming in just one month,” and that it was “almost double the amount” logged by VIDAA-powered devices in June 2023.
Around half of all streaming consumption on VIDAA-powered TVs took place on apps offered natively through the platform, Edri said. VIDAA supports popular apps like Netflix, Prime Video, Disney Plus and YouTube.
VIDAA was spun out of Chinesse tech firm Hisense in 2019. Hisense continues to be one of the biggest manufacturers of VIDAA TVs sold in more than 160 countries, with the TV sets gaining popularity in Europe, North Africa and Latin America. Recently, some VIDAA-powered Hisense TVs have found their way stateside after the company secured a sales arrangement with Best Buy.
“We are just in the beginning of the era of the smart TV,” Edri said in an interview with this reporter for StreamTV Insider earlier this year. “The U.S. is a very saturated market — that’s why we decided to focus on other places first, and only recently in the U.S. — but our platform is like any other platform.”
One thing that sets VIDAA apart is that the company has no desire to make its own line-up of TV sets, which Roku and Amazon have started doing after years of third-party partnerships. It also is not interested in programming its own free, ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels. Instead, VIDAA wants to nurture its third-party manufacturing agreements and content distribution partnerships by remaining agnostic in both businesses, supplying both the operating system and the FAST platform to any electronic maker or TV programmer who wants to distribute either on their own terms.
VIDAA’s record streaming consumption in June is proof that “we are enabling the streaming revolution, which benefits everyone,” Edri said on Friday.
“It allows customers easier and faster access to content in a more affordable and flexible way,” Edri continued. “It saves content providers tons of money on distribution cost. It saves cable companies the cost of distributing and servicing additional hardware like set-top boxes. And it allows advertisers dynamic and targeted advertising option in people’s living rooms. We are welcoming more partners to join the VIDAA familiy.”
