2024 fueled the arms race in the TVOS wars

Last February, Xperi entered the US Smart TV market, by launching TiVo OS-powered TV sets in partnership with Sharp. The release of these TV sets represents one of the latest moves by CTV players to gain market shares in the highly competitive TVOS space. The market does not lack challengers: either existing ones, expanding to new regions and/or TV brands, or newcomers. But as one could have expected consolidation, 2024 showed that all those players are determined to compete and challenge the likes of Samsung or Google. To what extent did they succeed in making their mark in the TVOS market last year?  White-label OS providers are ramping up to increase their footprint Most newcomers in the industry are white-label OS providers, which have been particularly active in the last months. Mid-2023, Zeasn, now rebranded as Whale TV, announced the acquisition of Foxxum. As of 2025, Whale TV now boasts a significant reach of more than 43 million monthly active TVs.  Announced in 2022, Xperi’s TiVo OS has now been introduced in around 15 European countries, and just recently launched in the US. Deals with several new OEMs like Thomson have been signed, and Xperi expects to power 7 million TVs by the end of the year – it has already around 2 million of them.  On its side, Titan OS, which has agreements to power a share of the line-up of Philips, AOC, and JVC TV models in parts of Europe and Latin America, has now more than 4 million monthly active users through its Titan OS-powered Smart TVs. The most recent newcomer is The Trade Desk, with its Ventura OS, which should launch later this year. All of these white-label OS providers expect to address the OEMs looking for an “independent” partner to help them monetize throughout the whole lifecycle of the TV set, thanks to revenue-sharing deals, and take a piece of on-platform margins, much higher than on the pure hardware business. They are willing to take some market shares from leaders, in a market with high regional disparities. In Europe, Google’s Android TV/Google TV and Samsung’s Tizen are still dominating the TVOS market, followed by LG’s webOS. Tizen benefits from Samsung’s position as the number one TV brand in Europe, while Google can rely on its multiple partnerships with strongly distributed medium- and low-end TV brands.  Latin America, Roku’s new El Dorado?  In the US, Roku just hit the 1 million milestone for its own Roku-branded TV sets, launched in 2023. But Roku has yet to consolidate its position in the Smart TV-only market outside North America. However, the expansion in Latin America has already proven successful, especially in Mexico, where Roku claims to be the...