Wal-Mart to acquire digital entertainment provider VUDU

Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world's largest retailer yesterday agreed to acquire struggling digital technologies and services provider Vudu Inc, for an undisclosed sum to enhance its home entertainment business in the US.

Vudu, a start-up founded in 2004 and based in Santa Clara, California, provides digital technologies and services that deliver internet entertainment to consumers' HDTVs and home theatres.

The company, which has received venture capital funding from Greylock Partners and Benchmark Capital, has never made a profit since its existence but has tried to capitalise on the growing number of broadband-ready TVs and Blu-ray players, that delivers instant access to thousands of movies and TV shows directly through the television.

Vudu has licensing agreements with almost every major movie studio and dozens of independent and international distributors and offers approximately 16,000 movies, including the largest 1080p library of video on-demand movies available anywhere. Via their broadband internet connection, users have the ability to rent or buy titles and begin viewing them instantly.

Vudu, like other competitors in the internet-connected set-top boxes such as the Apple TV and MovieBeam, was unable to find customers who were willing to pay $400 on the set-top-box over and above paying more to rent or buy movies through the Web.

Wal-Mart, the world's largest public corporation by revenue and the largest seller of DVD's in the US through its over 4,000 stores across the country, where about 100 million customers, nearly one-third of the US population, visit Wal-Mart's stores in the US.

Though the retailer has not revealed the financial terms of the transaction, the US media has reported a purchase price of around $100 million.