Walmart is currently one the USA's largest online movie retailers, overtaking the likes of Sony and Amazon while competing directly with Apple's iTunes, the Financial Times reports (quoting recent research from IHS Screen Digest).
The retail giant is "aggressively building" its online video presence-- buying Vudu and offering digital movies at discount prices. Vudu's US digital movie market share for H1 2011 is 5.3% (up H1 2010's 1%), with supported devices including the iPad.
The FT says "Walmart's growth came at Sony's expense," particularly as Sony had to shut down its online operations following attacks on its global security.
iTunes remains the dominant online movie retailer in the US (with 65.8% market share in H1 2011) while Amazon moves its online movie business to a streaming VOD model.
What does this mean to the European market? It's not too difficult to imagine any of our Walmart-equivalents starting to pay attention to the European online video market, isn't it?
