08/23/2007 07:56:22 AM 
(1) 
(1) This marketplace had been dominated by the big Asian brands like, Sharp and Samsung.
Vizio is now a $2 billion company, which is amazing, considering it was founded just 4 years ago. Its secret has been to leverage the excess supply in the marketplace to cost effectively produce flat screen televisions that look as good as the major brands.
However, perhaps the greatest contributuon to the brand’s success has been it’s ability to build out distribution, first by creating a strong foundation with Wal-Mart and then reaching out beyond the giant to the other players.
Incidentally, the company has just 85 employees in its Orange County HQ and spends less than 1% of sales on advertising.
Posted by Ed Cotton
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Given that HD provides such an "Oh, wow" experience relative to normal TV no matter what HDTV you look at, Vizio's big selling point is just being in the store next to the Sony, looking pretty much the same, at 50% of the price. Another piece of the equation is the chipsets that help decode the HDTV signals. They actually do a lot of the work in making HDTV look good. Sony and other "premium" brands have had to spend money developing that stuff, which then can be knocked off and sold as a commodity. Places like Vizio just buy that tech for pennies on the development cost dollar. An issue is whether or not their model is sustainable. If you are just competing on price and using off-the-shelf parts, you are only as good as your relationships with your retailers (and your Asian suppliers). And when they squeeze, you better squeeze.