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Walmart Acquires Major Smart TV Maker — What It Means for You
By Movieguide® Contributor
Walmart has officially acquired TV maker Vizio in a $2.3 billion deal. The retailer announced the deal in February 2024 with the goal of expanding its advertising business.
Walmart stated that the new deal will “bring to market new and differentiated ways for advertisers to meaningfully connect with customers at scale and boost product discovery, helping brands achieve greater impact from their advertising investments with Walmart Connect.”
What does this mean for Vizio TV users? More ads.
Tech Radar explained, “Walmart will be tracking what you watch on your Vizio TV. According to FlatpanelsHD, Walmart will be collecting viewing data via a system called ACR, short for Automated Content Recognition. That scans the content you watch to help target ads more effectively. That means the prize here isn’t so much the TV business as the SmartCast operating system: as Walmart says, the acquisition.”
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Vizio began in 2002 as an affordable option for smart TVs. Variety said, “To date, Vizio has garnered more than 19 million active accounts, growing approximately 400% since 2018. VIZIO has built this customer-centric platform on its devices enabling users to stream content for free by watching ads. Vizio’s Platform+ segment, which consists largely of its advertising business, now accounts for all the company’s gross profit.”
“Since the inception of Vizio, our mission has been to provide incredible value, great technology, and award-winning innovation,” Vizio CEO William Wang said of the acquisition. “Today, with the tremendous number of resources from Walmart, we will continue to further accelerate that mission around the best home entertainment experience.”
Seth Dallaire, executive VP and chief growth officer of Walmart U.S., said Vizio “always put customers at the center of their business — and that’s core to Walmart’s values and the omnichannel experiences we’re excited to roll out…Pairing it with Walmart Connect will be impactful and allow us to invest in our business even further on behalf of our customers.”
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