Wal-Mart’s Vudu Emerges as Legit Digital Movie Service

Unlike Wal-Mart’s (NYSE:WMT) other online ventures, Vudu is generating customer interest and has proved to be a success. It offers high quality streaming at reasonable prices, and many of movies are new releases and available the same day as the DVD is available. Wal-Mart has integrated Vudu movies into its Walmart.com website and while it traditionally competes with other big retailers like Target (NYSE:TGT), Costco (NASDAQ:COST), Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Best Buy (NYSE:BBY), the online platform video initiatives stack Wal-Mart up against players like Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iTunes, Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX)

We currently have a Trefis price estimate of near $74 for Wal-Mart’s stock, which is about 40% above the current market price.

Vudu Gaining Customer Support

Vudu has one of the strongest libraries of first-run and new release content. It is also available for the iPad users. Its prices vary according to the movie ranging between $2 for rent and $20 for a permanent digital copy. Wal-Mart purchased Vudu for $100 million in 2010.

According to a recent report from IHS Screen Digest Media Research, Vudu’s share in the online movie market witnessed a substantial increase from 1% to around 5.3% between H1 2010 and H1 2011. It ranks third in the online movie market behind iTunes and Microsoft’s Zune Video Marketplace with 66% and 16% share respectively. ^[1]

Vudu marks Wal-Mart’s first success in the online retail market. Wal-Mart looks keen on catching up with the latest trends in the technology and consumer sectors. We believe Vudu has the potential to bring in a diversified revenue source for Wal-Mart and could equip the retail giant with expertise in online retailing and pave the way ahead for other online initiatives.

Our complete analysis for Wal-Mart’s stock is here.

1. See: Wal-Mart’s Vudu Surging in Digital Video Market [↩]