Andre Yoskowitz
20 Apr 2012 13:41
The Walmart-owned streaming service Vudu is looking to expand internationally, claim sources.
If accurate, Mexico will be the first stop in the expansion, starting in June. The bigger deployment will head across Latin America and will eventually reach over 30 countries. Vudu plans to expand to Europe and Asia later in the year, as well.
Wal-Mart declined comment except to say: "We're always looking at ways to expand our offerings but we have nothing new to share at this time."
A Vudu expansion would compete directly with Netflix, which is in the middle of its own 45 country expansion. Wal-Mart, however, has some advantages given it has 5,000 stores across 26 countries. In Mexico and Latin America, especially, there have been stores since the early 90s.
Finally, Vudu will allegedly "allow consumers to make purchases off of pre-paid cards," giving it a huge advantage over Netflix, which can only accept credit cards. Credit cards are not as popular in South America and Europe as they are in the U.S.