Walmart and Amazon lead shift towards e-commerce driven TV platforms

Retailers are forecast to control 47 per cent of the North American TV operating system market by 2029, a significant rise from 27 per cent in 2025, according to the latest research by market intelligence firm Omdia.

This rapid shift highlights how major retailers are now prioritising e-commerce-driven retail media advertising over traditional shipment leadership, a theme that dominated the recent CES 2026 event in Las Vegas.

The global market is consolidating into three segments, with localized Android forks holding a stable 96 per cent share in China while Google TV faces increasing competition from Vidaa, Titan and TiVo in other regions.

North America is expected to reach an inflection point in 2027 when Walmart’s CastOS shipments hit 14 million units following the strategic acquisition of Vizio.

Walmart has already increased Vizio shipments by 37.5 per cent to a projected 6.6 million units in 2025, while Amazon saw an 11.5 per cent increase in FireTV unit shipments during the same period.

By 2029, these two retail giants are projected to ship a combined 23.6 million units into a total North American market of 50 million units.

“At CES 2026, VIDAA OS underwent a major transformation,” Patrick Horner, Practice Leader for TV Set Research at Omdia, said.

Horner noted that the system is transitioning to the name V Home OS to reflect a role beyond televisions, including a partnership with Microsoft to integrate Copilot’s generative AI capabilities.

“The name change is part of the wider push by the company to be an operating system that encompasses not only AI but also, eventually, acts as a shopping portal,” Horner added.

Google has similarly integrated its Gemini AI into Google TV, introducing interactive shoppable video features that allow users to identify and purchase items directly from the screen.

These AI-driven prompts are designed to bridge the gap between watching and buying by providing direct paths to checkout without the user ever leaving the interface.

“Users can engage in conversational shopping,” Horner said, explaining that viewers can simply ask the TV where to buy items seen on screen.

The system can then provide a QR code or add the item to a Google Shopping cart immediately.

“This confirms that across multiple TV OS platforms, enabling shopping is a key market driver,” Horner concluded.