The story of William Wang, a Taiwanese immigrant who survived a horrific 2000 plane crash and built a billion-dollar business selling televisions, began a new chapter last week.
Walmart Inc., the worldโs largest retailer, on Dec. 3 completed its $2.3 billion acquisition of Wangโs Vizio, an Irvine-based maker of smart TVs. While Vizio is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bentonville, Arkansas giant, the two companies will continue to operate separately for the foreseeable future.
โI am planning to stay on as CEO of Vizio, and I am excited about the opportunity to take Vizio to the next level,โ Wang told the Business Journal last week after the announcement.
Wangโs Vizio, which reported $1.7 billion in 2023 sales, is joining a company that generated $648 billion in fiscal 2024. Why Walmart, already a giant in television sales, decided it needed Vizio is a testament to Wangโs business acumen.
โVizio offers great products at great prices that customers love,โ Seth Dallaire, executive vice president and chief growth officer, Walmart U.S., said in a statement. โTheyโve always put customers at the center of their business โ and thatโs core to Walmartโs values and the omnichannel experiences weโre excited to roll out.โ
Wang has surrounded himself with talent. Vizio in 2021 won a couple of prominent Business Journal awards for Chief Financial Officer Adam Townsend and its In-House Legal Team.
This year, it even picked up a Technology & Engineering Emmy awardย from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for its โpioneering work in utilizing data to power better viewing experiences for consumers and advancing the broader television marketplace.โ
Wang this year also won a Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award.
Wang is a regular on the Business Journalโs annual list of wealthiest local residents with an estimated fortune of $1.5 billion.
Heโs also the second OC entrepreneur to complete a billion-dollar sale in the past month. On Nov. 15, Axonics Founder and Chief Executive Raymond Cohen closed its $3.7 billion sale to Boston Scientific Corp.
Vizio to Amplify Walmartโs Advertising
Walmart will boost its advertising, entertainment and business strategy with the acquisition of Vizio.
The purchase of Vizio and its Platform+ system โwill alter the streaming advertising landscape,โ according to entertainment industry website Deadline.
โThe deal allows Walmart to collect Vizioโs automatic content recognition data to bolster advertising and positions,โ allowing the retail giant to be a bigger force in the connected TV world, according to Deadline.
Walmart Connect, the retailerโs closed loop, omnichannel retail media business in the U.S., grew 26% in the third quarter of this year; a dollar figure wasnโt provided.ย By contrast, Vizio said sales at its Platform+ system jumped 26% to $197 million.
With Vizio, Walmart said the acquisition will โaccelerate growth at Walmart Connect,โ which offers its suppliers and sellers opportunities to reach their desired customers no matter where, how and when they shop.
Wangโs Focus on Consumer Experience
Wangโs story is the stuff of OC legends.
Prior to Vizio, Wang, who holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California, was the founder and CEO of PGS OEM Inc., a distributor of computer monitors.
In the late 1990s, he invested roughly $20 million into a smart TVโa 36-inch, glass tube, low-resolution TV. He installed electronics and software into a TV so people could browse the web. Without a brand, followers, distribution team or fast internet connectivity, the idea didnโt take.
โI was way ahead of the time. I lost a lot of money and I failed,โ he told the Business Journal in an earlier article.
PGS OEM began winding down its operations in 1998 and liquidated in Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2005.
His life took a dramatic turn in 2000 when he survived a horrific crash of a Singapore Airlines in Taipei that killed 83 of the 179 people onboard.
He co-founded Vizio in 2002 with a handful of employees and the funds from a second mortgage on his home.
โIn our early years, we cultivated supplier and retail partner relationships to create an efficient business model that would allow us to deliver exceptional value to American consumers,โ he wrote in a 2022 letter to shareholders.
Groundbreaking Costco Deal
Fast forward a few years and everything changed for Vizio when Wang and team launched the first high-definition television for $1,999 at Costco, undercutting competing brands priced at around $10,000.
By 2015, sales had boomed to $3.5 billion. China-based electronics and software conglomerate LeEco offered to buy Vizio for $2 billion, a deal that eventually fell apart due to what the company called โregulatory headwinds.โ
Wang knew something was amiss as the offering price was only about half of sales. He decided that hardware wasnโt enough, and he had to build a software platform for his televisions.
The result became known as Vizioโs Platform+, which consists of its SmartCast operating system that allows for streaming of services such as Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV+, and Inscape, which helps advertisers with targeted advertising.
In essence, the platform allows advertisers to tailor their ads to viewers, similar to how Facebook or Hulu gather information from their users such as interestsโinformation that aids in serving more relevant advertisements.
โThe TV industry has not been focused on this connection,โ Wang wrote in 2021. โWe want Vizio to be that connection, to be the portal connecting the home to the outside world. We envision the Vizio Smart TV as the center of the connected homeโwhere families all play games together, where friends watch movies together, where work and learning happen and where all things in between take place.โ
For example, Wang noted a show like 60 Minutes might feature the same ad on arthritis medication to all its viewers.
โIโm not a target. I have no arthritis. However, because they think people watching โ60 Minutesโ are a little bit older, therefore, theyโre going to show their ad to you,โ he said.
By contrast, Vizioโs system shows ads tailored to the interests of viewers.
The success of Wangโs pivot has become evident in recent years. When the company went public in 2021, its market cap approached $4 billion, or twice the 2015 offer.
Last year, sales at Vizioโs TV division fell 22% to $1.08 billion while revenue at its Platform+ unit jumped 25% to $598 million.
Furthermore, the company is retaining customers. Vizio reported it has 19.1 million SmartCast Active Accounts, which streamed 5.8 billion hours during the three-month period ended September. Its system now provides 270 built-in apps per television.
Walmart, which paid about 1.4 times sales, cited the software as a key reason for the acquisition.
โVizio has also expertly changed their business over time, like building and quickly scaling a profitable advertising business,โ Walmartโs Dallaire said.
He added that the acquisition will โbring to market new and differentiated ways for advertisers to meaningfully connect with customers at scale and boost product discovery, helping brands achieve greater impact from their advertising investments with Walmart Connect โ the companyโs retail media business in the U.S.โ
Largest TV Maker, Revenue Slid
Walmart (NYSE: WMT) agreed in February to acquire Vizio for all cash. Wang, who was 60 at the latest proxy in April, owns shares worth close to $850 million.
The deal was held up for several months by regulators who scrutinized it for possible anti-trust violations.
Wang retaining the top spot at Vizio comes as no surprise. Vizio told the SEC in February that โour growth will, to a large extent, depend on the attention of Mr. Wang to our daily affairs.โ
Today, Vizio is the largest U.S.-based flat-panel TV maker and trails only Samsung Electronics among sales in the country.
Growth speaks โto the progress we have made increasing awareness of Vizio as a skilled destination for advertisers to reach viewers,โ Wang said previously. โBy our measure, weโll continue to gain share within connected TV, one of the fastest-growing areas of advertising marketplace.โ
While he will stay on as CEO of the unit, Wang is no longer on the company board, which has been pared down to one person, Walmart Executive Dallaire.
โToday, with the tremendous number of resources from Walmart, we will continue to further accelerate that mission around the best home entertainment experience,โ Wang said.
