Retail giant Walmart is in talks to buy budget TV maker Vizio. The $2 billion deal will make Vizio a house brand for Walmart and allow the company to directly compete in the affordable smart TV space currently dominated by Amazon and Roku.
It would also give Walmart access to all the sweet, sweet customer data collected by Vizio’s smart TV platform over the years, opening up another revenue stream in the form of personalized ads. The company would also be able to sell user data collected by Vizio boxes. Finally, it can use Vizio TVs as advertising space in the showrooms of some 11,000 retail outlets. The company already does this with display TVs through its current in-house brand, Onn.
However, Roku and Amazon have years to strengthen the budget TV market. Roku started with streaming devices, but last year moved into smart TVs and has a more expensive line. Amazon Fire TVs are almost everywhere, more so So Walmart has a pretty steep hill to climb.
Speaking of past deals, this isn’t Vizio’s first acquisition rodeo. The company has been looking for a buyer for years. Vizio Another $2 billion deal by Chinese media conglomerate LeEco was in 2016, but things moved quickly. LeEco, once called the “Netflix of China”, and backed out of the deal, leaving Vizio in a difficult position. This led to Vizio demanding $100 million from LeEco Shortly after that,
If the deal goes through without a hitch, Vizio will join other tech companies under Walmart’s global umbrella. These include content delivery platform Vudu, AR optical technology company Memomi, ONE banking app and a number of digital retailers such as Shoes.com and Bare Necessities.
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