LG, Panasonic, Philips will introduce televisions next year equipped with Swedish software Magine Cloud so users can watch television channels flexibly online

October 7, 2013 Leave a comment

LG, Panasonic Put Magine Cloud Service in Smart TVs for Europe

LG Electronics Inc. (066570), Panasonic Corp. (6752) and Royal Philips NV will introduce televisions next year equipped with Swedish software so users can watch television channels flexibly online. Magine AB’s cloud service lets users with an Internet link scan its TV schedules, surf channels, rewind shows and access archived content dating back 30 days via a tablet, phone, computer or TV. The application will be available on the smart TVs in the first quarter of 2014 in European countries where Magine operates.“We see already that people are using this on the subway, at work and home, and we are seeing an increase in TV watching in general with it,” Mattias Hjelmstedt, chief executive officer at Stockholm-based Magine, said in a phone interview. The company will show off the system this week at the Mipcom TV market in Cannes, France.

Magine started its service in Sweden in March and forecasts it will have 1 million users by early next year. Cloud-based TV services facilitate so-called cord cutting, allowing TV viewers to watch any program at any time from any device and eliminating reliance on a TV set-top box, cables or a satellite dish.

“These services are about mobile, tablet and PC viewing and can be a nice proposition for people who aren’t going to pay 50 pounds ($80) a month for premium channels,” said Paul Jackson, a media and technology analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media in London.

In July, Magine raised $19 million in funding from Swedish and international investors to expand. It operates in Sweden, Spain and Germany, and will probably announce service in a new European country next month, Hjelmstedt said.

Startup Costs

Magine may face competitors offering similar services, because of the low costs to set up a cloud-based business, according to Jackson. Users must have fast broadband connections to support the TV service, he said.

In Sweden, Magine costs 99 kroner ($15.40) a month and offers 38 channels including Discovery, BBC, Eurosport, National Geographic and Cartoon Network. Magine is in talks with content providers and broadcasters to offer further channels, he said.

Hjelmstedt, 40, started Magine in March. He declined to comment on the value of the deal with the smart TV makers.

To contact the reporter on this story: Kristen Schweizer in London at kschweizer1@bloomberg.net.

Filed under TMT Trends

Unknown's avatarAbout bambooinnovator
Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

Leave a comment