Vizio, the video company that turned Costco and Wal-Mart into home theater shops, has sold its two-millionth television, the company tells AVRev.com. Their first set was sold on September of 2003 and the two-millionth was sold in August of 2007. The vast majority of the sets sold by Vizio have been HDTVs.
Vizio, one of the few video companies based in the United States and powered by new distribution channels such as big-box retailer Circuit City, is expecting to break the 3,000,000 set mark before the end of the 2007 holiday season.
Despite the short time frame, Vizio has been a big part of the engine driving down the price of large, flat HDTVs for mainstream users. Other video companies have cut prices to match. The impact of Vizio on independent retailers who can’t effectively sell audio to match the affordable HDTVs now in the market has also been significant, as Vizio’s low prices have ushered in an era of slim profit margins and high volumes that traditional AV retailers have, in many cases, been ill-equipped to deal with, as proven by the recent bankruptcy of retailer Tweeter.
