Walmart sells Vudu to Fandango as it exits streaming market
Retailer Walmart is in the process of selling Vudu, its on-demand video streaming service, to movie ticketing service Fandango, an acquisition that will give Fandango more leverage in a crowded streaming market that includes Apple TV+.

The sale of Vudu will hand the streaming service over from Walmart to Fandango, once the deal completes as expected within a few months. Terms of the acquisition remain largely unknown, but part of the agreement involves Vudu continuing to provide its service as part of Walmart's online digital TV and movie store.
Vudu customers will continue to have an uninterrupted service as the company changes hands, reports TechCrunch, including unrestricted access to their Vudu library. Customers will also be able to use their Walmart login to sign into the service, and to make purchases using their existing Walmart wallet.
Fandango already operates its own streaming service, FandangoNOW, giving the firm a venue to integrate Vudu once the sale completes, with a likely benefit being Vudu's existing reach. It is claimed Vudu has a reach of over 100 million living room devices and computers across the United States, while the Vudu app has been installed on over 14.5 million mobile devices.
The deal effectively takes Walmart out of the streaming market almost entirely. In January 2019, it reportedly abandoned plans to launch a streaming service similar in concept to Netflix, apparently due to the potentially heavy investment in original content, with the retailer instead choosing to improve Vudu.
That streaming market is continuing to crowd, with more major players joining it over the last few years, with more also on the way. Existing services including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney , and Apple TV have also been joined by Peacock from NBCU, while WarnerMedia is gearing up to bring out HBO Max.
In a statement, Walmart said it "will continue to invest in areas where we have the greatest strength and are in the best position to serve our customers today and in the future." Citing pickup and delivery arms as examples of how Walmart has "invested in bringing digital and physical capabilities together" to help its customers, the retailer is apparently prioritizing its investments to serve customers in "new ways."

The sale of Vudu will hand the streaming service over from Walmart to Fandango, once the deal completes as expected within a few months. Terms of the acquisition remain largely unknown, but part of the agreement involves Vudu continuing to provide its service as part of Walmart's online digital TV and movie store.
Vudu customers will continue to have an uninterrupted service as the company changes hands, reports TechCrunch, including unrestricted access to their Vudu library. Customers will also be able to use their Walmart login to sign into the service, and to make purchases using their existing Walmart wallet.
Fandango already operates its own streaming service, FandangoNOW, giving the firm a venue to integrate Vudu once the sale completes, with a likely benefit being Vudu's existing reach. It is claimed Vudu has a reach of over 100 million living room devices and computers across the United States, while the Vudu app has been installed on over 14.5 million mobile devices.
The deal effectively takes Walmart out of the streaming market almost entirely. In January 2019, it reportedly abandoned plans to launch a streaming service similar in concept to Netflix, apparently due to the potentially heavy investment in original content, with the retailer instead choosing to improve Vudu.
That streaming market is continuing to crowd, with more major players joining it over the last few years, with more also on the way. Existing services including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney , and Apple TV have also been joined by Peacock from NBCU, while WarnerMedia is gearing up to bring out HBO Max.
In a statement, Walmart said it "will continue to invest in areas where we have the greatest strength and are in the best position to serve our customers today and in the future." Citing pickup and delivery arms as examples of how Walmart has "invested in bringing digital and physical capabilities together" to help its customers, the retailer is apparently prioritizing its investments to serve customers in "new ways."
Comments
Most of them were MA compatible, so I could add them to my iTunes library.
I guess that's all over with now.
Now is the perfect time for Apple to take back their stores from thieves and bet Fandango is gonna sink this ship into the ground.
We like privacy. That's why.
Vudu was a company stealing from iTunes. It wasn't so much a "streaming" service in the vein of Netflix or Hulu.
Read the article. The author wasn't complaining that Apple owns the App Store.
Some idiots do want Apple to invent everything and pass it on to some 3rd party to profit on.
Fandango is evil!
FYI, VUDU set a bar high for picture and sound quality. It’s a great service, which even has ability for people to buy digital copies of physical media they have, also to buy both disc and digital at the same time.
I read through that article and while I personally think it’s a little gaudy, the developer brought up some valid points. I think his biggest mistake were the examples he submitted. Unfortunately I think if he would have started with something a little more “professional” he might have had better luck.
Branching out is fine, you just have to learn to get good at it. Maybe having multiple brands for retail vs streaming video wasn’t a great strategy? Who knows.
The real problem I have with auxiliary rental services is why bother using them at all? iTunes already does rentals and the prices are almost always the exact same. Maybe once in a while there is a different older movie price in the back catalog, but I can only think of finding that once for me. But for those with iTunes maybe it’s viable. Or maybe there are too many choices already.
The hell it is. My internet service plus custom subscriptions to a couple services when I want them is far less than the huge cable bills people in my family pay for.