Sources: Walmart is considering launching a subscription streaming video service that would undercut Netflix and Amazon Prime Video on price
Walmart is considering launching a subscription streaming video service to compete with Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, people familiar with the situation told The Information.
Context & Ripple Effects
This 2018 report sits early in a long-running Walmart-versus-Amazon arc: back in 2015 the retailer had already tried to undercut Prime with an invitation-only $50/year delivery service. The twist here is that Walmart's streaming ambitions ran through Vudu, the service it owned at the time.
What makes the story worth revisiting is how the plan actually resolved: within two years Walmart was in advanced talks to sell Vudu to Comcast's NBCUniversal (the Vudu divestiture), launched Walmart+ at $98/year without owned video, and by 2022 was negotiating with Paramount, Disney, and Comcast to bundle third-party streams into the membership (those bundling talks) — renting content instead of building it.
First-order effects
- A Walmart-priced service would attack Netflix and Amazon Prime Video on their most sensitive dimension — monthly cost — while giving Walmart's massive shopper base a reason to stay inside its ecosystem rather than Amazon's.
Second-order effects
- A price-led entrant forces Netflix and Amazon to defend with exclusives and bundles rather than matching on price, since neither can cut list prices without touching its whole subscriber base.
Third-order effects
- The pattern that held: retailers treat video as membership glue, not a profit center — Walmart exited ownership via the Vudu sale and pivoted to bundling partners, suggesting standalone retail-owned services give way to distribution-platform deals.
The trend: Retail memberships are absorbing streaming as a retention feature, with big-box players shifting from owning content services to brokering bundles inside programs like Walmart+.