Global Business

The Global Grocer

Food retailers are going global. The leaders in this trend include Wal-Mart of the United States, Carrefour of France, Ahold of Holland and Tesco from the United Kingdom. Carrefour, the world’s second largest retailer is perhaps the most global of the lot. In 2004 Carrefour, the pioneer of the hypermarket concept was operating in 29 countries while generating most of its sales outside France. By December 2004, Carrefour had 6546 stores worldwide.

By 2004, Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer had more than 3200 stores in the U.S. with 1506 Wal-Mart units in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, United Kingdom, China, South Korea, Germany, Puerto Rico and Canada with 231 stores. Wal-Mart has 1.3 million sales associates in the U.S. and 330,000 worldwide with more than 138 million customers visiting stores each week. Unlike Carrefour, which generates most of its sales outside of France, Wal-Mart receives the majority of its revenues from within the U.S. Wal-Mart sells general merchandise in addition to food, but food retailing is an increasingly important part of business, particularly internationally. Acquisitions are driving expansion. Wal-Mart Built new stores in Mexico, entered the German market through acquisitions, and acquired Asda, a national food retailer, in Britain.

By 2004, Ahold had 1322 stores operating under 6 different names in the United States and was selling almost 70% of its product outside Holland. In 2003, it had started selling off most of its Central and South American operations with restructuring and downsizing also evident in its European locations. By 2004, Tesco had 2318 stores of which 261 were in other European countries, with 179 locations in Asia and employing 326,000 people. Carrefour does not yet have a U.S. presence, but is said to be looking at potential Acquisitions in the U.S., including Kmart and Target. Britain’s Tesco, a latecomer to the global game, is now expanding rapidly particularly in Southeast Asia...