As cable TV subscribers drop, Comcast and Spectrum are looking for new ways to grow. Recently Comcast announced a $20 a month live TV streaming service called Now TV that offers 40 live channels, on-demand, and Peacock. Now Comcast and Spectrum are working together to launch a new streaming player to take on Roku, Fire TV, Google, and more.
Now Comcast wants to get into this market with a rebranded streaming player called the Xumo Box. This will take the current Comcast streaming player and rebrand brand it to the Xumo Box in partnership with Spectrum who will chip in $900 million. This will let Spectrum also use the streaming player for its own customers.
Update: Comcast reached out with clarification to Cord Cutters News on this. This year the Xumo Stream Box will be launched for Spectrum and Comcast customers. A smart TV called Xumo TV will be the first device sold in retailers this fall. The Smart TV will be sold in Walmart and other retailers. Both devices will run the same operating system.
Here is the rest of the original story.
According to Comcast, sometime in late 2023, they plan to start selling their new streaming in Walmart stores and others yet to be named. This was once again confirmed at the Stream TV Show where Xumo’s CEO presentation showed that this new streaming player will still launch this year.
The Xumo Box will be a rebranded version of their Comcast Flex streaming player running their X1 OS. Xumo is likely a name you may know as it is also the name of the free ad-supported streaming services Comcast purchased back in 2020.
Comcast started offering their Flex Device free to some of their customers if they have Xfinity Internet without a TV service. The catch was after the first device, it would cost you $5 a month with a limit of 3 devices per account.
The app store on the Xfinity Flex still may not be as large as Roku or the Fire TV, but it does offer most of the major streaming services and even some Roku does not offer, like YouTube Kids.
No word on pricing yet, but it is expected to be very competitive to the pricing for a Roku or a Fire TV.