Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Thursday said it was closing its online DVD rental business and would direct its customers to Netflix Inc., offering the struggling company a lifeline. The Wal-Mart partnership gives Netflix exposure to 500 million visitors who visit the walmart.com site every year. Shares of Netflix, which pioneered online rentals, jumped as much as 24 percent and touched their highest level since August, before rival Blockbuster Inc. launched a competing online service. The Wal-Mart-Netflix deal shrinks the competitive landscape for the nascent online DVD rental industry to just two players. Netflix and Blockbuster have been locked in an expensive price war since last fall, when Blockbuster launched its online service and twice undercut Netflix's subscription price. "This is big," Fulcrum Global Partners analyst Stacey Widlitz said. "That's pretty significant for (Netflix). I would say they are gaining back some traction in the fight with Blockbuster." --More 2251 Local Time 1951 GMT
