Let S be a finite or countable set. Given a matrix F = (F ij ) i, j∈S of distribution functions on R and a quasi-stochastic matrix Q = (q ij ) i, j∈S , i.e. an irreducible nonnegative matrix with maximal eigenvalue 1 and associated unique (modulo scaling) positive left and right eigenvectors u, v, the matrix renewal measure [28,29] by drawing on potential theory, matrix-analytic methods and Wiener-Hopf techniques. The purpose of this article is to describe a quite different probabilistic approach which embarks on the observation that Q ⊗ F turns into an ordinary semi-Markov matrix after a harmonic transform. This allows us to relate Q ⊗ F to a Markov random walk (M n , S n ) n≥0 with discrete recurrent driving chain (M n ) n≥0 . It is then shown that renewal theorems including a ChoquetDeny-type lemma may be easily established by resorting to standard renewal theory for ordinary random walks. Three typical examples are presented at the end of the article.