Walmart is offering its Walmart+ subscription at half off for new sign-ups, and it includes a choice of either Peacock Premium or Paramount+ Essential. The deal for new subscribers is just $49 for the first year, marked down from $98.
Walmart
A Walmart+ subscription is 50 percent off for new subscribers.
The real value is in selecting Peacock Premium, which would normally run you $110 per year on its own. With the current discount on a Walmart+ subscription you are essentially getting half off on your streaming subscription for that year.
Just about every major has raised its prices in the last year, including , , , and , so saving some money on one of them just might be worth the effort. is not nearly as affordable as it used to be, so finding a deal like this is pretty helpful.
Walmart+ itself offers myriad additional benefits like early access to Black Friday deals, free shipping on orders over $35, discounts on gas, free online veterinary care and more. Earlier this year, Walmart+ subscribers got on the Nintendo Switch 2 at the retailer. You can also use that free shipping to take advantage of Walmart’s program in a handful of select cities.
India’s payments regulator is set to decide as early as Monday whether to curb the dominance of Walmart’s PhonePe and Google in the nation’s fast-growing mobile payments market, a move that could reshape how its billion-plus population moves money.
The decision centers on UPI, or Unified Payments Interface, a network backed by more than 50 retail banks that has changed how Indians pay for everything from groceries to taxi rides. The platform processes over 13 billion transactions monthly, making it one of the world’s largest digital payment networks. It’s also, by far, the most popular way Indians transact online.
The rule, first proposed in 2020, would particularly affect Walmart-owned PhonePe, which handles 47.8% of all UPI payments, and Google Pay, which processes 37.1%.
The uncertainty has thrown a wrench into PhonePe’s plans to go public. The startup, valued at $12 billion and backed by Walmart, would be one of India’s most prominent technology IPOs. PhonePe’s co-founder and chief executive, Sameer Nigam, said in August that the startup cannot go public “if there is uncertainty on the regulatory side.”
“If you are buying a share at Rs 100 and you price it assuming we have 48-49% market share, then there is an uncertainty about whether it will come down to 30% and by when,” said Nigam (pictured above) at a fintech conference. “We are requesting them [the regulator], if they can find another way to at least solve whatever their concerns are or tell us what the list of concerns is.”
The issue also impacts the growth potential of numerous fintech startups that are attempting to make deeper inroads in digital payments. If the regulator imposes restrictions on PhonePe and Google Pay’s ability to onboard new users or puts a check on how many transactions they process, many other startups stand to gain grounds.
The regulator is inclined to delay enforcing the cap again or may increase the limit to more than 40%, people briefed on the situation told TechCrunch. The agency has already pushed back the deadline several times, from January 2021 to 2023, and then to 2025, as it struggled with implementation. It has held talks with many stakeholders as recently as last week over the decision.
Enforcing a limitation on the market share will impact the consumer experience, some of the people said.
The situation highlights India’s efforts to balance technological innovation with market competition. UPI has been a cornerstone of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s push to digitize India’s economy and reduce its reliance on cash. The system allows instant transfers between bank accounts using simple identifiers like phone numbers, making it more accessible than traditional banking services.
A market share cap would mark one of India’s most significant interventions in its technology sector, which has attracted massive investments from global companies like Walmart, Google, and Meta. These companies view India, with its young, increasingly digital population, as a crucial growth market.
TV sales are as predictable as the changing seasons, with prices steadily dropping on multiple brands and models this time of year. As Black Friday has become more of a monthlong free-for-all than a weekend event, you’ll find many of the best TV deals available now, making it the perfect time to complete your big purchase. Below are some of my very favorites and top performers at a wide variety of price points for your perusal. And don’t forget to check out our Black Friday buying tips and curated gift guides as you check off your shopping list.
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TV Deals
Samsung S90D
Photograph: Ryan Waniata
LG’s C4 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) is perennially named one of the best TVs you can buy, for good reason, and it’s now at the lowest price we’ve seen all year. You’ll get the stunning contrast and perfect black levels of a top OLED display, rich and naturalistic colors, sparkling clear picture processing, and solid brightness with support for Dolby Vision HDR. LG’s smart interface is quirky but lightning-fast, and the Magic Remote works like a Nintendo Wii remote for versatile control. Extras like four fully-loaded HDMI 2.1 inputs to serve up the top gaming features make the C4 feel like a flagship TV at second-tier pricing.
Not to be outdone, Samsung’s second-tier OLED (9/10, WIRED Recommends) is another of my favorite TVs of the year. The 65-inch model’s QD-OLED panel (the 42-, 48-, and 83-inch models use a more traditional WOLED panel) provides fabulously rich colors and a slight brightness boost over its C4 counterpart, alongside the perfect black levels and excellent picture quality from any angle that makes OLED TVs top performers. Like the C4, you’ll get HDMI 2.1 support across all four inputs and Samsung’s Game Hub lets you stream games from an impressive list of services, including Xbox. Like all Samsung TVs, the S90D doesn’t support Dolby Vision, the most common dynamic HDR format, opting for HDR10+ instead. Otherwise, it’s hard to find a flaw.
If you’re after something more budget-friendly, Hisense’s U7N QLED TV (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is our pick as the best TV for most people right now, thanks to its mix of killer brightness, vivid quantum dot colors, and excellent contrast. We saw some uniformity issues in testing (aka the dirty screen effect) but it’s not noticeable in most situations, and the TV’s mini LED backlighting system is a step above regular LED TVs, with loads of dimming zones for minimal “blooming” or light wash around bright images. An intuitive Google TV interface and high-end gaming features complete the package for a TV that punches well above its price.
Hisense U8N
Photograph: Ryan Waniata
Looking to bust the brightness barrier? Hisense’s 65-inch U8N TV (8/10, WIRED Recommends) is among the brightest we’ve ever tested, outshining the vast majority of LED rivals with its searing highlights and voluminous quantum dot colors. You might think all that power would make it a poor performer in the dark, but the U8N’s advanced mini LED backlighting allows for inky black levels with very little light bloom. You’ll also get top-end gaming features and a Google TV interface. The TV’s off-axis image quality and motion handling are just OK, but otherwise you’re getting a lot of the goodies found in premium TVs for far less money. Add in a good sale, and it’s hard to say no.
If affordability and convenience top your TV checklist, this balanced baseline model from Roku is an enticing choice. Roku’s simplified interface runs the show, making it easy for even the less technically inclined among us to navigate between inputs, broadcast TV, and your choice of hundreds of streaming services. The TV’s picture quality isn’t top tier, and its 60-Hz refresh rate may not appeal to avid gamers, but you do get good brightness, vibrant colors, local dimming for solid black levels without blotchy light patches, and smart support for Apple Homekit, Alexa, and Google Assistant.
Maybe you’ve been waiting to go gonzo with a mega screen this holiday season. If so, TCL’s QM7 is a tempting bargain, offering good performance at a great price in an absolutely massive screen size. I’ve only tested the 65-inch version, but the large-and-in-charge model should offer a similar overall experience, with excellent brightness and more dimming zones to provide good contrast and black levels. It’s loaded with features, including gaming extras and all major flavors of HDR, and its overall picture processing and screen uniformity are surprisingly solid for its class. My only hesitation with this TV is a settings issue I experienced where the HDR changes with SDR settings. TCL was able to fix this for me with a firmware update, and the brand says one is coming for all its TVs in December. That hindrance aside, this is a whole lot of screen real estate for a price that costs less than some premium 65-inch models. If you’re still unsure, last year’s excellent Hisense U8K (8/10, WIRED Recommends) comes in 100 inches right now for $3,000.
Another brightness champion, the Bravia 9 (9/10, WIRED Recommends) matches its next-gen LED potency with brilliant balance to create one of the most stirring performances of any TV I’ve tested. You’ll almost feel the heat of the sun or lasers cascading across the screen, while Sony’s proprietary backlighting and processing systems provide incredible contrast and clarity. You’ll get Sony’s Google TV smart interface for simple navigation, and high-end gaming features, including in-house PlayStation exclusives. The TV’s off-angle viewing is good, not great, and I wish Sony would offer HDMI 2.1 gaming support across more than just two of its four inputs, but if you’re after the best LED TV on the market at its lowest price yet, you’re welcome.
If I’d known the Bravia 7 (7/10, WIRED Recommends) would drop this low, I honestly would have given it a higher score. It seemed a bit too high at its $2,300 MSRP, but now that it’s $1,000 lower, and $400 off its original sale price, it feels like Sony’s giving these things away. My main gripe about the Bravia 7 was its notably poor performance from the side. If you’re mainly watching from straight-on, though, this is a killer performer for the money. The TV’s mini LED backlight is brilliantly bright, with dazzling colors, excellent contrast, and stunning clarity across content. Like most TVs in its class, it tacks on top gaming features (though only across two of its four HDMI inputs), and its Google TV interface adds intuitive control. At this price, this is among the best options for anyone after a bright-yet-refined TV experience.
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), the governing body overseeing the country’s widely used Unified Payments Interface (UPI) mobile payment system, is set to engage with various fintech startups this month to develop a strategy to address the growing market dominance of PhonePe and Google Pay in the UPI ecosystem.
NPCI executives plan to meet with representatives from CRED, Flipkart, Fampay and Amazon among other players to discuss their key initiatives aimed at boosting UPI transactions on their respective apps and to understand the assistance they require, people familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.
UPI, built by a coalition of Indian banks, has become the most popular way Indians transact online, processing over 10 billion transactions monthly.
The new meetings are part of an increasing effort to address concerns raised by lawmakers and industry players regarding the market share concentration of Google Pay and PhonePe, which together account for nearly 86% of UPI transactions by volume, up from 82.5% at the end of December. Walmart owns more than three-fourths of PhonePe.
Paytm, the third-largest UPI player, has seen its market share decline to 9.1% by the end of March, down from 13% at the end of 2023, following a clampdown by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
An overview of India’s UPI ecosystem. (Image: Macquarie)
The conversation follows the central bank expressing “displeasure” to the NPCI over the growing duopoly in the payments space, a person familiar with the matter said. An NPCI spokesperson declined to comment.
In February, a parliamentary panel in India urged the government to support the growth of domestic fintech players that can offer alternatives to the Walmart-backed PhonePe and Google Pay apps.
The NPCI has long advocated for limiting the market share of individual companies participating in the UPI ecosystem to 30%. However, it has extended the deadline for firms to comply with this directive to the end of December 2024. The organization faces a unique challenge in enforcing this directive: It believes that it currently lacks a technical mechanism to do so, TechCrunch previously reported.
The RBI is also weighing an incentive plan to create a more favorable competitive field for emerging UPI players, another person familiar with the matter said. Indian daily Economic Times separately reported Wednesday that the NPCI is encouraging fintech companies to offer incentives to their users, promoting the use of their respective apps for making UPI transactions.
