Wal-Mart Abandons Online Movie Downloads

Bentonville, Ark. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has closed its online movie download service that the company launched less than a year ago.

The retreat for Wal-Mart, which accounts for about 40% of all DVD sales, follows the company's 2005 decision to abandon efforts to build an online DVD rental service. The company instead turned its rental service over to Netflix Inc.

Wal-Mart still operates a music download service and continues to sell CDs and DVDs at retail stores and over the Internet for shipping by mail.

In a statement, Wal-Mart spokeswoman Amy Collella said the company closed the store after Hewlett-Packard Co., which provided the software running the site, "made a business decision to discontinue its video download-only merchant store service."