Walmart Buys Vudu And Enters The Movie Download Market
In a major move for the retail giant, Walmart have entered the internet movie market by agreeing to buy Vudu. The video on demand website that charges per download/view of top movies and TV shows via the web, was previously rumoured to be heading to Walmart. The deal is expected to close within the next few weeks.
VUDU is cutrrently a pretty small operation, a three year old online movie service which is embedded in a number of television sets and Blu-ray players. Although It is one of many services all competing in the same niche, the sector is destined for massive growth, especially as broadband speeds are increasing all the time.. Walmart have seen the growing trend of downloading and streaming movies as opposed to getting a DVD by snail mail or store.
Currently competing with a number of pay tv services including Netflix, Blockbuster, Amazon and Apple iTunes. Vudu was looking ripe to be swallowed up by a bigger company, just to stay competitive with the big boys who are taking this market seriously now.
By purchasing VUDU, Wal-Mart will get a company that has top quality streaming technology able to stream movies in 1080p HD. It is expected that pretty soon VUDU’s competitors will offer the same. VUDU also has licensing agreements with most movie studios and carries a catalogue of around 16000 movies.
Wal-Mart is already a world leader in retailing DVDs and has seen the shift away from discs and into downloading. Not having a service in this area is a big problem if you want to remain top dog. The deal will also help sales of Internet connected televisions and disc players making Wal-Mart a major player in the streaming online movie market.
One thing is for sure, the move by Wal-Mart into online movies gives a glaring indication in how big the video streaming market will become.
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[...] Walmarts purchase of Vudu has got people asking “why is a major retailer dabbling in online tv and video?”. After all, it is still a fact that US consumers still prefer to spend their time watching traditional tv rather than browsing around the internet watching tv online. Walmart have entered the internet movie market because they can see its the future, whilst traditional DVD sales are dwindling. When everyone is watching online tv, Walmart wants to be a big player. Walmart invading your TV [...]
[...] Walmart owned, streaming online video provider Vudu has expanded the number of electronics devices that its VOD service is available on. Now with over 300 supported connected devices and a web browser option as well. [...]