Update: Wal-Mart announced in a press release Tuesday morning that it will officially acquire Vizio for $23 billion

Wal-Mart may be eyeing TV maker Vizio with the goal of aggressively restructuring its TV business and strengthening its advertising potential

The report, led by The Wall Street Journal, discusses the potential $2 billion acquisition as an attempt on Wal-Mart's part not only to compete with more affordable TV manufacturing giants such as Roku and Amazon Fire TV, but also to double down by 2024 in an It has been suggested that this could be an attempt to strengthen its advertising business, which it aims to double by 2024

Why is Wal-Mart willing to pay big bucks for Visio? Wal-Mart already has its own TV brand, On, but going through Visio would give it one of the best-known affordable TV manufacturers in the industry

More importantly, Wal-Mart would have a veritable goldmine of several years' worth of user data from Vizio, as well as a great platform for advertising

According to the WSJ, which published its first report on Tuesday, Wal-Mart is looking to acquire budget TV maker Vizio for $2 billion If the deal goes through, the giant retailer would control more than one-fifth of the US TV industry and could create more room for its fast-growing advertising business, Wal-Mart Connect

Walmart has been aggressively strengthening its advertising division in recent years, partnering with Roku in 2022 to offer shoppable ads through the TV maker's interactive operating system Last year, it worked with Innovid and its so-called Dynamic Creative Optimization solution to fuel both interactive and connected TV (CTV) messages with AI to deliver improved and more engaging advertising

Walmart could reach nearly 18 million users by owning Visio, and according to Insider Intelligence (thanks to Reuters), Visio's TVs account for nearly 70% of Walmart's TV sales, making the retailer could have a special incentive to buy into the Visio ecosystem

And if this were not enough, Wal-Mart could leverage its new control over Visio by placing a variety of ads in its stores

When asked by e-mail about the validity of the $2 billion deal, a Vizio spokesperson told Tom's Guide, "No comment at this time"

The WSJ added that the deal is still in progress and could miss the mark, through someone familiar with the potential acquisition information provided

If the deal, which relies solely on Vizio CEO William Wang, goes through, Wal-Mart will be in direct competition with alternative budget TV manufacturers Roku and Amazon Fire TV Interestingly, Walmart already has an exclusive agreement with Roku to sell Walmart products through the Roku OS

No one knows how the Walmart-owned Visio brand will fare against longtime rivals Roku and Amazon (both of which make their own TVs and smart platforms), but if the result is cheaper, higher quality TVs in every Wal-Mart store shelves, they will also be in Wal-Mart stores in the other 19 countries in which Wal-Mart operates, which could spell trouble for the other two major US players