Walmart+, the retailer's main competitor, will add Paramount+ access as a new benefit

Walmart is partnering with Paramount Global to bring its streaming service, Paramount+, to members of Walmart's own free shipping program and its Amazon Prime rival, Walmart+. The deal was first confirmed by The Wall Street Journal on Monday afternoon, following recent news of the retailer's talks with major media companies about such an arrangement.

Walmart has now officially announced news of its deal, but hasn't said when access to the Steam service will be rolling out for Walmart+ members.

However, the retailer said the deal will allow Walmart+ members access to the Paramount+ Essential Plan membership - an added value of $59 - while its own membership price will remain the same.

Introduced in September 2020, the $98 per year Walmart+ subscription includes a variety of benefits including free same-day shipping, fuel discounts, free shipping from Walmart.com, home delivery , contactless payment with scan & go and early access to offers. Walmart has also partnered with Spotify to give members six months of Spotify Premium for free.

In addition to the annual fee, consumers can choose to pay Walmart+ at $12.95 per month for the same benefits.

Last week, The New York Times reported that Walmart had been in discussions with several major media companies about a potential bundled deal with Walmart+. According to the NYT, Walmart had spoken to Paramount, Disney, and Comcast about bundling its shipping membership program with Paramount+, Disney+/ESPN+/Hulu, or Peacock, respectively.

The new partnership with Paramount not only provides Walmart with a more competitive offering to compete with Amazon Prime – which includes the Prime Video streaming service – but could also help boost lagging Walmart+ subscriptions.

An August 2022 report from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) found that Walmart+ subscriptions had plateaued and were now down slightly quarter over quarter. He said that in July, 11 million customers in the United States were Walmart+ members, the same as the April 2022 quarter and up from 9 million customers in the July 2021 quarter. But the report indicates that the membership program has not yet increased in 2022.

“Over the past three quarters, membership has remained consistent at between 11 million and 11.5 million customers,” noted CIRP co-founder Josh Lowitz. Prior to that, he added, "Walmart+ membership has grown steadily since Walmart launched the program in September 2020, with the enrollment of COVID-19 pandemic shoppers."

Walmart has not officially revealed how many of its customers are now Walmart+ subscribers. CIRP, however, estimated Walmart+ penetration to be 25% for the July 22 quarter, meaning that 25% of Walmart.com customers reported being Walmart+ members. That figure was up from 17% of Walmart.com customers in the July 2021 quarter, analysts said. (The company's forecast is based on surveys, in this case some 500 U.S. consumers who made purchases during the May-June 2022 period.)

Another Morgan Stanley study, referenced by the Journal, estimated that Walmart+ has about 16 million members.

For Paramount+, a distribution deal through Walmart+ would provide its own competitive advantage in an increasingly crowded streaming landscape where it must compete with top services like Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, Apple TV+ and Peacock. Earlier this month, Paramount said the Paramount+ service had grown to 43 million subscribers and had a longer-term goal of reaching 100 mi...