Vizio revives its plan to go public
The manufacturer withdrew its first attempt at an IPO after LeEco's failed acquisition.
Vizio has revived its plans to go public more than five years after its first attempt at an IPO. The TV and sound bar manufacturer has submitted a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission regarding its proposed initial public offering. According to Bloomberg, the company listed $100 million as the size of the offering, but that's just a placeholder that could change. Vizio is expected to reveal the real number of and the price of shares for purchase in another filing at a later a date.
The company tried to go public for the first time back in 2015 with a filing that emphasized the sales of its smart TVs. However, it withdrew its plans a year later after it reached a deal to be acquired by Chinese company LeEco for $2 billion. Vizio was going to become a LeEco subsidiary until their deal fell apart following the latter's fall from grace — the manufacturer even sued LeEco, which was then beset with financial problems, for the failed acquisition.
In its new filing, Vizio said it sold 7.1 million smart TVs in 2020, 20 percent more than what it sold the year before that. Its net income for 2020 is $102 million on a revenue of over $2 billion, over four times its $23 million income on a $1.8 billion revenue from 2019. While it made most of its money from device sales, $147 million of its 2020 revenue came from its Platform+ service made up of its SmartCast operating system and its viewer data business Inscape.
