

The name came from FedMart, a chain of discount department stores founded by Sol Price in 1954, whom Walton was also inspired by. Its design was inspired by Ann & Hope, which Walton visited in 1961, as did Kmart founder Harry B. On July 2, 1962, Walton opened the first Wal-Mart Discount City store at 719 W. Main Street in Bentonville, naming it "Walton's Five and Dime". The lease then expired for the location and Walton was unable to reach an agreement for renewal, so he opened up a new store at 105 N.

Within the fifth year, the store was generating $250,000 in revenue. Sales increased 45 percent in his first year of ownership to US$105,000 in revenue, which increased to $140,000 the next year and $175,000 the year after that. He experienced setbacks because the lease price and branch purchase were unusually high, but he was able to find lower-cost suppliers than those used by other stores and was consequently able to undercut his competitors on pricing. His primary focus was selling products at low prices to get higher-volume sales at a lower profit margin, portraying it as a crusade for the consumer. Penney employee Sam Walton bought a branch of the Ben Franklin stores from the Butler Brothers. ( June 2020) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message)ġ945–1969: Early history Founder Sam Walton Sam Walton's original Walton's Five and Dime Store in Bentonville, Arkansas, now serving as The Walmart Museum Please try to keep recent events in historical perspective and add more content related to non-recent events. This article or section appears to be slanted towards recent events.

Its operations and subsidiaries in Canada, the United Kingdom ( ASDA), Central America, South America, and China are successful, but its ventures failed in Germany, Japan, South Korea, Brazil and Argentina. A Walmart in York, Pennsylvania, opened in October 1990, the first main store in the Northeast. Sam's Club opened in New Jersey in November 1989, and the first California outlet opened in Lancaster, in July 1990. The company was originally geographically limited to the South and lower Midwest, but it had stores from coast to coast by the early 1990s. By 1988, it was the most profitable retailer in the U.S., and it had become the largest in terms of revenue by October 1989. Walmart was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1972. Walmart was the largest United States grocery retailer in 2019, and 65 percent of Walmart's US$510.329 billion sales came from U.S. Sam Walton's heirs own over 50 percent of Walmart through both their holding company Walton Enterprises and their individual holdings.

It is a publicly traded family-owned business, as the company is controlled by the Walton family. It is also the largest private employer in the world with 2.2 million employees. Walmart is the world's largest company by revenue, with about US$570 billion in annual revenue, according to the Fortune Global 500 list in October 2022. They eventually divested their shareholdings in Grupo Big to French retailer Carrefour, in transaction worth R$7 billion and completed on June 7, 2022. Since August 2018, Walmart held only a minority stake in Walmart Brasil, which was renamed Grupo Big in August 2019, with 20 percent of the company's shares, and private equity firm Advent International holding 80% ownership of the company. It has wholly owned operations in Chile, Canada, and South Africa. The company operates under the name Walmart in the United States and Canada, as Walmart de México y Centroamérica in Mexico and Central America, and as Flipkart Wholesale in India. Īs of October 31, 2022, Walmart has 10,586 stores and clubs in 24 countries, operating under 46 different names. It also owns and operates Sam's Club retail warehouses. The company was founded by brothers Sam and James "Bud" Walton in nearby Rogers, Arkansas in 1962 and incorporated under Delaware General Corporation Law on October 31, 1969. ( / ˈ w ɔː l m ɑːr t/ ⓘ formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores in the United States, headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas.
