Walmart

Today, the Wal-Mart Canada Home Office is with over 278 locations employing more than 70,000 Canadians. Petitions continue to come in from across Canada asking that Wal-Mart stores be built in their towns. Wal-Mart Canada will continue to open new stores and make changes to better serve its customers. Wal-Mart Canada store associates are celebrating the success of their prior fiscal year by sharing a record $45.4 million in bonus payments, based on company and store goals. This represents the company's greatest bonus pay-out in its 14-year history. Wal-located in Mississauga, Ontario, Mart de Mexico is a major retail chain in Mexico. As of April 30, 2008, it operates 1,044 units throughout 177 cities nationwide, including self-service stores, membership wholesale clubs, apparel stores, and restaurants. During 2007, the Company created 15,728 permanent new jobs, reaffirming their position as one of the largest employers in the country. There are now more than 157,000 associates, and each day they find new development opportunities in an atmosphere of gender equality, and apply these talents to serving their customers. In the United Kingdom, Wal-Mart took over Asda in June 1999 and now has some 259 stores and 19 depots across the UK. Insiders said that the two companies were a perfect match. In fact, Wal-Mart is now importing Asda's clothing line George, into its U.S. stores. In the UK, Wal-Mart has announced plans for 10 to 12 new stores per year, with the company hoping to create in excess of half a million square feet of new retail floor space per annum for the foreseeable future. Wal-Mart plans were to become the biggest food retailer in England by 2005, surpassing current market leader, Tesco's. This goal could not be met by growth alone, so it meant acquisitions. Asda bid to buy Safeway, currently the fourth largest food retailer and eventually will bid for the rival company Somerfield. It's all about being able to expand in parts of the UK where our model is not yet available.

India and Japan Wal-Mart cannot enter the Indian market directly. This is because current regulations pertaining to foreign direct investment. The government did relax some rules last year by allowing "single-brand" retailers such as Nike or Gucci to own 51 percent of their business operations in India. But this still precludes market entry to global merchants like Wal-Mart that sell a variety of brands. In line with what is permitted under existing guidelines, Wal-Mart will focus on the back-end supply chain management, giving Bharti access to its knowledge in information systems, logistics and supply chain management. India's widely awaited move to open up its $300 billion consumer market to overseas retailers seems to have hit a speed bump, which regional experts say could bring more scrutiny of Wal-Mart's move into the world's second-most populous country. Several Indian newspapers, including the Economic Times, have reported that Sonia Gandhi, president of the Congress Party, which heads India's coalition government, has

asked Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to reassess how further relaxing foreign direct investment rules could affect the country's family-owned retail businesses. The debate over how big retailers like Wal-Mart can invest or operate in India boils down to simply what proponents are saying about opening up the retail sector to outside investors. This is sorely needed to help India create more jobs, boost exports and improve its transportation and other infrastructure. But opponents, mainly left-leaning parties who support but aren't part of the coalition government, argue it would hurt the economy and destroy jobs since about 97 percent of the Indian retail market is mom-and-pop businesses. India is already Wal-Mart's fastest growing sourcing market. More significantly, the world's largest retailer has identified India, the second most-populous nation and fourth largest retail market, as a huge growth opportunity, especially as its home market becomes increasingly saturated. After almost five years since Wal-Mart, Stores Inc. landed in Japan, the world’s largest retailer has yet to find itself on steady ground. Its 53 percent-owned local unit Seiyu Ltd. has posted five straight years of losses, has not paid a dividend for a decade, and has lost three quarters of its stock market value since Wal-Mart first invested in the Japanese supermarket chain. The U.S. retailer quit South Korea and Germany last year to focus on China and other promising areas, prompting speculation it would also desert Japan in the manner of France's Carrefour, which sold its stores to Aeon in 2005. Some analysts say Wal-Mart should either give up on Japan, where it has invested a total of more than $1 billion, or buy the whole of Seiyu to speed up an overhaul. Others say Japan's $1.1 trillion retail market -- the world's second largest after the United States -- is too big to pass up for Wal-Mart's international expansion dream. Overseas expansion is key to Wal-Mart's future. International business now generates more than one-fifth of sales and is growing fast. Sales overseas rose 30 percent while revenues at its U.S. division increased 8 percent in the year ended January 2007. Seiyu makes up 12 percent of its international sales, according to Citigroup. Many foreign retailers have struggled in the Japanese market, hampered by fickle consumer taste, fierce competition and prolonged depression in consumer spending. Besides Carrefour, retailers like Britain's Alliance Boots and French cosmetics chain Sephora have pulled out of the market in the past. Japanese consumers, whose refrigerators are typically about two-thirds the size of the average U.S. model, tend to buy groceries more often and in smaller amounts. Wal-Mart's strategy initially did not agree with Japanese customers, who tend to associate discount prices with low quality, and the U.S. retailer's systems did not work well in Japan's complicated retail networks. Seiyu has bled red ink since Wal-Mart marched in, while local rivals such as Seven & I Holdings and Aeon took advantage of the country's economic recovery and started to gain more buying power via acquisitions. Wal-Mart Japan also is hampered by poor locations

and a lack of services such as finance and speciality stores that have been growth drivers for rivals, said Citigroup analyst Deborah Weinswig in New York.