Walmart Stores. Inc. 50 Years Strong

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the American worldwide retailer which runs chains of large discount department stores and warehouse stores, is the world's 18th largest public corporation, according to the Forbes Global 2000 list. Moreover, ranked by revenue, the company is the largest public corporation and the biggest private employer in the globe with over 2 million employees. The largest retailer on earth is controlled by the Walton family which owns 48% stake in Wal-Mart. In 1962 Sam Walton established the company. By October 31, 1969 it was integrated as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange in 1972 (NYSE: WMT.) Wal-Mart became the largest grocery retailer in the United States. In 2009, it generated 51% of its US$258 billion sales in the U.S. from grocery business. It also owns and operates of the Sam's Club retail warehouses in North America.

Walmart has 8,500 stores in 15 countries. Under its own name, the company functions in the United States, including the 50 states and Puerto Rico. The company use different names like Walmex in Mexico, Asda in the United Kingdom, Seiyu in Japan, and Best Price in India. Fully owned operations Walmart has in Argentina, Brazil, and Canada. However the company’s investments outside North America have not been as successful as the operations in the United Kingdom, South America and China which have showed positive results, whereas the projects in Germany and South Korea have failed.

In general Walmart’s operations are essentially focused on territory so that the company’s specialization in logistics leads to pursuing efficiency, information and distribution — that has made it a worldwide applicable corporation.

Charles Fishman, in The Walmart Effect, describes the company as "carefully disguised as something ordinary, familiar, even prosaic. But in fact, Walmart is a completely new kind of institution: modern, advanced, potent in ways we’ve never seen before . . . Walmart has outgrown the rules...