General presentation of the Walmart company :
Let's find out more about Walmart and its activities.
The Walmart group is an American company specialising in mass distribution but also the world leader in this sector.
In order to better understand the activities of this group, it is possible to divide them into different divisions according to the share of turnover they generate and in this way :
- Distribution in the United States and Puerto Rico represents 76.3% of the group's turnover and is carried out through various chains including Wal-Mart with 4,769 stores and Sam's Club with 599 warehouses.
- Distribution in the rest of the world represents 23.7% of sales with 5,993 stores in Mexico, Central America, the United Kingdom, China, Brazil, Africa, Canada, Chile, Japan, Argentina and India.
Know the competition of Walmart stock:
Walmart's major competitors include the following companies:
- Costco Wholesale Corporation: This retail company owns a distribution chain that operates on the principle of club member-accessible warehouses. It has 715 warehouses worldwide but its head office is based in the United States.
- Carrefour: This French group is notably the first to have created supermarkets in 1963 and has become over time one of the leaders of mass distribution in the world. It is currently the third largest in this sector in terms of sales.
- Tesco Plc: This UK-based company also operates in Ireland, Eastern Europe and Asia. Tesco is one of the world's largest retail groups and has 3,780 stores in the UK.
- The Kroger: This is another U.S. retailer that offers food distribution in 2,757 stores and also operates convenience stores, jewelry stores, gas stations and manufacturing plants for third party accounts.
- Amazon: Finally, the American group Amazon is also a major competitor of Walmart in the online sales sector because this company now offers both everyday products and food products on its Internet platform.
The strategic alliances put in place by the Walmart group:
Let's find out now who are the recent partnerships that the Walmart group has put in place over the last few years:
- Microsoft: In 2018, it is with the giant Microsoft that Walmart signed a 5-year strategic partnership to migrate a large part of the sites Walmart.com and Samsclub.com to the Microsoft Azure cloud. The company thus wishes to use artificial intelligence solutions in order to compete with Amazon, which is taking more and more market share.
- Shopify: Another recent strategic alliance is with the start-up Shopify. This electronic platform is used by more than a million companies worldwide. Here, Walmart's main objective is to open its market to vendors of small businesses registered on Shopify.
- Google: Finally, the Walmart group has also set up a strategic partnership with the Google group, again with the aim of countering Amazon's offensive. Since the implementation of this alliance, Walmart has been able to market hundreds of thousands of its products on Google Express, which is a home delivery platform.
The advantages and strong points of Walmart shares as stock market assets:
Let's now discover the main strengths and weaknesses of the Walmart Group in order to better anticipate its growth capacities.
Let's start with a summary of the main benefits of this action with the strong points of the Walmart company:
- First of all, let's remember that Walmart is currently the leader in mass distribution in the world with more than 20% of the market share and a turnover of more than 40 billion dollars per year.
- The Group has also implemented a well-thought-out price competitiveness strategy.
- The Group's internationalisation strategy is also to be commended and enables it to effectively compensate for the maturity of the American market. In addition, the group has recorded interesting growth in its results in emerging countries for several years, particularly in Brazil and South Africa.
- Finally, the company also managed to improve its results in the online sales segment.
The disadvantages and weak points of Walmart shares as stock market assets:
With regard to the drawbacks of this value and therefore the weak points of this company, only one point should be noted:
- The Walmart group is indeed regularly under attack with regard to labour legislation which tarnishes its brand image.
