All those Vizio TVs swarming the aisles inside of Walmarts across the globe will now be owned by Walmart itself. Walmart bought the TV maker Tuesday wholesale for a whopping $2.3 billion. At first, you may assume Walmart wants to use the brand as its main TV for in-store and online shoppers, but according to the retail giant, it’s all to put its own ads on Vizio-brand smart TVs.
Walmart bought the TV maker Vizio for $2.3 billion. This includes Vizio’s SmartCast Operating System, which Walmart said in a release will enable it to market “new and different ways for advertisers to meaningfully connect with customers at scale.” The retail giant said it will use Walmart Connect to boost advertisers’ messages through Vizio TVs.
Vizio’s SmartCast enabled viewers to stream some content through ads with services like WatchFree+. Now, Walmart will have access to 19 million active accounts logged onto Vizio’s services. The big box retailer said it will “continue to operate separately for the foreseeable future” while Vizio CEO William Wang continues as CEO. Still, Vizio is now a full subsidiary of Walmart, requiring all the information to be shared between both parties.
You may remember the Federal Trade Commission settled with Vizio for around $2.2 million after a ProPublica report showed the company collected and sold user data to advertisers without permission. Vizio, and practically every other smart TV maker, has massive data harvesting networks that collect information about what you watch, when you watch it, what ads you sit through, and so much more.
Despite its public reaming, Vizio continued as a major advertising business through its ad-based offerings. The Walmart Connect platform connects advertisers with its users and products. The two services combined will balloon the number of data points it can sell to advertisers.
Vizio is one of the more popular TV brands for one main reason: they’re pretty good quality for their cheap price. We’ve enjoyed their LCD TVs and soundbars, plus their range of Quantum QLEDs was of similar quality to fellow budget TV brand TCL. Vizio just released its MicMe soundbar, which is meant to offer users a few free karaoke services that also depend on ads.
Unlike cheaper TV brands that rely on existing TV OSs like Google TV or Amazon Fire TV, Vizio also uses its own SmartCast interface to let you access your TV apps or attached devices. WatchFree+ is a big part of that, so it is one of the first promoted apps that prominently displays TV shows on its UI.
Walmart’s biggest competitor, Amazon, is also all-in on TV advertising. Amazon has had its own self-branded TVs since 2021, and last month, it started selling its mini-LED TVs under the new “Omni” branding. These, of course, use Amazon’s Fire TV for its OS by default. Amazon. Last year, Amazon said it could reach 155 million monthly viewers across all its ad platforms, whether its website or Prime Video. Director of Fire TV advertising, Charlotte Maines, waxed on about the awesome capabilities of ads on Fire TV with StreamTV. This will include personalized “relevant” display ads based on their searches or other watch data.
Walmart seems to think it needs to compete in the smart TV segment, especially if it doesn’t have to get bogged down in the haze of costly streaming services. We don’t know if this acquisition will emphasize more ads on Vizio TVs. Still, we wouldn’t be surprised if the rules of enshittification take hold with this latest multi-billion dollar buyout.
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