Wal-Mart Stores Inc said it will buy broadband entertainment provider Vudu, a deal would give the world’s biggest retailer the ability to sell movies directly through TVs and Blu-ray players over the Internet.
The deal could give Wal-Mart a way to compete with electronics rival Best Buy Co, which partnered with Sonic Solutions in November to offer Roxio CinemaNow movie-downloading software on all Web-connected devices sold in Best Buy’s US stores.
Wal-Mart did not disclose the terms of its deal or define its ambitions for the service.
Eduardo Castro-Wright, vice chairman of Wal-Mart, said in a statement on Monday that the acquisition will “provide customers with unprecedented access to home entertainment options as they migrate to a digital environment.”
Vudu Inc delivers movies to consumers for a price per transaction — either US$3.99 to rent or US$19.99 to buy — and requires broadband Internet access and an Internet-ready TV or Blu-ray player.
That capability puts Vudu in competition for customers of video-on-demand services offered by cable operators such as Time Warner Cable Inc and retailers such as Amazon.com Inc. and Apple Inc. Such services charge similar prices to rent new movies.
Another movie provider, Netflix Inc, charges a flat monthly fee starting at US$8.99 to get DVD rentals in the mail or online, but those movies will come out a month later than other higher-priced services after the company agreed with Warner Bros to a 28-day delay on new movies last month.
With the acquisition, Wal-Mart returns to the Internet movie business, which it tried several times in the past but failed. Its most recent attempt, offering movie downloads, ended in 2007 after less than a year. Wal-Mart, which is based in Bentonville, Arkansas, also handed off several thousand of its online movie subscribers to Netflix when it exited that business in 2005.
Vudu’s service has been embedded in LG- and Mitsubishi-made devices since August, but Wal-Mart does not currently carry those brands of TVs or Blu-ray players.
Last month, Vudu said it had expanded partnership deals to include Internet-connected TVs made by Sanyo, Sharp, Toshiba and Vizio. Wal-Mart sells high-definition TVs by all of those brands but Toshiba.
Vudu says it has licensing agreements with almost every major movie studio and independent distributors to offer about 16,000 movies.
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