Mart hopes to refocus on what it does best -- DVD sales -- by spinning off the online rental service to Netflix. "Selling movies has a great cross-channel integration with (Wal-Mart), but the rental business was less so," he told Reuters in a phone interview. Fleming and Netflix Chief Executive Reed Hastings said they began talking about a possible deal months ago, after Hastings did some Christmas shopping on Wal-Mart's Web site and noticed the low DVD prices. The companies would not release the terms of the agreement, but said it was a nonexclusive, multiyear pact that would allow Netflix to form a similar partnership with giant online retailer Amazon.com Inc.. Netflix Chief Financial Officer Barry McCarthy on Thursday told an analysts' conference that the company "would be interested" in such an arrangement if a deal could be struck. Hastings said it was too early to tell how many of Wal-Mart's online subscribers would make the jump to Netflix. Analysts have estimated walmart.com's DVD rental subscriber base at between 50,000 and 300,000. Wal-Mart, which launched its online DVD rental service in late 2002 but never promoted it heavily, did not disclose its number of subscribers. --More 2255 Local Time 1955 GMT
