Financial Analysis

WAL-MART



Financial Analysis of WAL-MART

Description of the Company

Wal-Mart that is controlled by the Walton family is a family owned business. It is the largest American retailer of the world. It is a multinational global corporation and accounts for almost 10% of all retail sales in US. It is an American brand that is operating chains of giant discounted hyper stores and Stockrooms. It is a giant retail outlet with sales surpassing almost all the retail outlet in US. It has been the biggest employment creation company with over two million employees on board. (vinodp.com,n.d.)

Operations

Wal-Mart has organized its operations into three divisions.

Wal-Mart Stores US

The significant and most profit making division of Wal-Mart is Wal-Mart US. It yields about $258 billion. It has three different types of retail stores which are the most visited stores in US. These stores are recognized as, Discount stores, Supercenters and Wal-Mart's Markets. Mostly non grocery items are the main business of Wal-Mart, but now they are also giving importance to more of the grocery products. Wal-Mart's online retailer and Wal-Mart.com are also a part of this division.Sam's Club

Sam's Club operations begin in 1938 in Midwest City. It is a warehouse chain which deals in bulk quantities of groceries and general merchandise. These stores offer memberships and mostly customers are interested in annual memberships. Sam's club also deals in no membership based selling. Some of its locations also deal in gasoline. Sam's Club has connected to small businesses as suppliers. It has form a niche by serving them this way. They are open for their customers in early hours so that their customers can get their access any time when required.

They believe in selling at discounts and attracting more diverse range of customers. In the year 2009, it decided to penetrate into the electronic medical records business in order to offer it to physicians at discounted price. Wal-Mart has partnerships with Dell and eClinicalworks.com for offering electronic medical records. Participation of Sam's club has been 11.5% of Wal-Mart's sales.

Locations

It has almost 8,500 stores in 15 different countries each with a different name. It operates with 55 varied names in those regions. In US and fifty other states of Puerto Rico, it operates under the name, Wal-Mart. In Mexico, it is operating as Welmex while in UK as Asda. In Japan, the name is Seiyu, and in India it operates as Best Price.

The idea of operating with different names did not mean to lose the identity but to adjust in the atmosphere of the country in which it is operating. Its operations outside North America do not have as prosperous results as it has in their home country. It has amalgamated outcomes in which operations of China, UK and South America were highly successful. On the other hand, operations of Germany and South Korea were unsuccessful.

Markets

The target market of Wal-Mart is individuals and families that belongs to middle class and do not have very high income. Customers of Wal-Mart are more interested in discounting products ...