TV could be Walmart's new secret weapon

In the battle for eyeballs, Walmart just placed a big bet.

Forget about price wars and discounts – its $2.3 billion acquisition of Vizio is all about its advertising business.

Vizio's claim to fame is that it creates and sells televisions and advertising through viewer data.

Vizio uses data from viewers' habits (gathered through Automatic Content Recognition technology) to know and understand what people watch. This valuable data is exactly what Walmart craves.

• Walmart and Vizio combined can create highly targeted ads that reach the right customers at the right time.

This acquisition helps Walmart fight against Amazon, which already sells ads on its Prime Video streaming service.

With control over Vizio's platform and its own customer data, Walmart can potentially offer advertisers a more targeted reach compared to Amazon.

In Q4 2023, Vizio made $174 million in revenue and $105 million in ad profit.