Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has made the announcement that they have shut down their video-downloading service, throwing in the towel and surrendering to Apple’s iTunes service as well as Netflix.
The video download sales stopped as of December 21st. Wal-Mart spkeswoman Amy Colella stated that the decision was greatly based on the fact that Hewlett-Packard decided to discontinue systems which supported the Wal-Mart service.
Back in February 2007, Wal-Mart began by opening their video-download service, selling thousands of television shows and movies. The hope was that they would be able to complete with locations such as Netflix, Apple, and others who rent movies over the internet.
Consumer electronics analyst Michael Pachter put it best though by stating, “They gave up, Wal-Mart occasionally makes these mistakes, assuming that because they sell the greatest percentage of everything, they can succeed at any business line.”
This comes as Netflix reported growth during their third quarter thanks to price cuts made to the service. Another one bites the dust in the video-download market.