Walmart officially announces its purchase of Vudu
It would seem that the information about Walmart purchasing Vudu got out a little bit ahead of when the two companies were ready to announce it, but one day later it is official.
Yesterday we brought you the news that Walmart had purchased Vudu, a streaming video company. This information was then being confirmed by both companies speaking with Hollywood studios that had deals in place with the video content provider. Today it was made official when Walmart made its announcement.
“The real winner here is the customer,” said Eduardo Castro-Wright, vice chairman for Walmart. “Combining VUDU’s unique digital technology and service with Walmart’s retail expertise and scale will provide customers with unprecedented access to home entertainment options as they migrate to a digital environment.”
However, Peter Kafka of All Things D is saying that the real winner is Vudu. Sources familiar with the situation told him that the sales price is around $100 million, far above what any industry analysts predicted. It is unclear why Walmart paid such a premium for a company that is viewed as an “also ran” in the streaming video marketplace, but what’s done is done.
One thing is certain, Walmart can certainly build this into something that is far more prevalent than it once was. With the number of televisions and Blu-ray players Walmart sells, it will be interesting to see how many of them have Vudu capabilities in the coming months, and if we see any drop off in the number that support Netflix. Even if Netflix doesn’t get pushed out of the stores, due to the size of the Walmart corporation, it has an opportunity to educate consumers like never before on the benefits of streaming media.
Vudu may be one of the lesser known streaming video solutions now, but that is sure to change when it is plastered over the stores of the world’s largest retailer.
The sale is expected to be finalized in the next few weeks.
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February 26th, 2010
Well, tat’s great…maybe next they will move their Global Procurement Offices out of China to the USA and stop putting 95% China made in all their stores there.
“Wal-Mart China persists in local procurement which provides more job opportunities, supports local manufacture industry and promotes local economy. So far, 95% of merchandising sold at Wal-Mart China store are local products by which Wal-Mart has established business relations with nearly 20,000 suppliers. At Wal-Mart, we treat suppliers as partners and would like to develop with them. In 2008 Wal-Mart won the Supplier Satisfaction published by Business Information of Shanghai for five consecutive years.”
So much for supporting American export and jobs in America.
Oh! and why don’t they help pay tat $9 billion a year in hidden taxes to all Americans to clean the fish from ballast tanks of ships…better yet…why don’t they help dry dock those 15 cargo ships tat pollute as much as 760 million automobiles.