WALMART

HISTORY OF THE COMPANY

The history of Walmart, an American discount department store chain, began in 1950 when entrepreneur
Sam Walton bought a store from Luther E. Harrison in Bentonville, Arkansas, and launched Walton's 5 &
10. The Walmart chain proper was established in 1962 with a single store in Rogers, expanding outside
Arkansas by 1968 and throughout the rest of the Southern United States by the 1980s, eventually
operating a store in every state of the United States, plus its first store. The development of new stores
played a significant role in the expansion, though the brands Mohr-Value and Kuhn's Big K were also
purchased. Sam's Club, the company's chain of warehouse clubs, debuted in 1983, and the first
Supercenter locations opened in 1998.

1960S AND 1970S

Sam Walton eventually decided to cut his profit margin in order to increase his sales volumes by
maintaining lower sales prices than his rivals. Walton launched its second location in Harrison, Arkansas,
that same year, motivated by the achievements of other inexpensive department store businesses. Bob
Bogle, Walton's assistant who was in charge of purchasing and maintaining signage, came up with the
name "Wal-Mart" for the new chain. By 1967, the business had grown to 24 stores throughout the state of
Arkansas and had reached $12.6 million in sales. By 1968, the company opened its first stores outside of
Arkansas in Sikeston, Missouri, and Claremore, Oklahoma.

At a market price of $47, the company's first stock split took place in May 1972. Walmart had already
established operations in five states by this point: Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, and Oklahoma.
Tennessee was added in 1973, and Kentucky and Mississippi followed in 1974. In 1975, the business
entered Texas and had 125 locations, 7,500 employees, and $340.3 million in revenue.

By 1977, Walmart had entered Illinois and completed its first corporate acquisition, taking control of and
running the Mohr-Value shops that were located in both Illinois and Missouri. This was followed by the
purchase of the Hutcheson Shoe Company in 1978. In the same year, Walmart launched its pharmacy, car
service center, and jewelry businesses, expanding its reach into a number of new markets.

Logo used from 1962 to 1964

Logo used from 1964 to 1981

1980S AND 1990S

When Walmart opened locations in Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina in 1981, it also acquired 92
Kuhn's Big K stores. This marked Walmart's entry into the southeastern US market. In 1982, they grew
into Florida and Nebraska.
The first Sam's Club store, a membership-based discount warehouse club, was launched by the business
in Midwest City, Oklahoma, in April 1983. They also established "people greeters" in every one of their
stores and furthered their reach into North Carolina, Indiana, Iowa, New Mexico, and Indiana. In 1984,
Virginia saw the opening of the first stores.

The corporation opened its first stores in Minnesota in 1986 after expanding into Wisconsin and Colorado
in 1985 with 882 locations, $8.4 billion in revenue, and 104,000 employees.

By the time the business celebrated its 25th anniversary in 1987, it had offices that tracked inventory,
and sales, and sent instant messages to its stores. Keeping up with technological advancements, by 1988
90% of its stores were fitted with barcode readers, which helped them keep track of their extensive
inventory even better.

Sam Walton, the founder of the company, stepped down as CEO in February 1988, and David Glass was
chosen to take his place. The company also reorganized its senior management positions, promoting a
group of executives to positions of greater responsibility. Walton continued to serve as chairman of the
corporate board of directors.

The first Wal-Mart Supercenter debuted in Washington, Missouri, in 1988 as well. Everything found in a
typical Walmart discount store is included in the supercenter concept, along with a tire and oil change
shop, optical center, one-hour photo processing lab, portrait studio, and numerous alcove shops like
banks, cellular telephone stores, hair and nail salons, video rental stores, and fast food restaurants.

Wal-Mart was the most successful retailer in the US by 1988, but it didn't surpass K-Mart and Sears in
terms of the amount of merchandise sold until late 1990 or early 1991.

By 1988, Walmart had grown into Arizona, Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, New Jersey, and Wyoming
and was operating in 27 states. By 1990, they had reached California, Nevada, North Dakota,
Pennsylvania, South Dakota, and Utah, making Walmart a fully-fledged national business. On the
location of Sam Walton's first Walmart shop, the Walmart Visitor's Center debuted this year as well.

In the 1990s, the firm had an extraordinary period of rapid growth and the adoption of various novel
concepts and technologies.

The McLane Company, a distributor of food services, was purchased by Walmart in 1990 after US sales
had increased fourfold to $32 billion during the preceding five years; in 2003, the company was sold to
Berkshire Hathaway.

Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New York were added to
the company's geographic reach in 1991. With the inauguration of its first location outside of the United
States in Mexico City, Walmart increased its global presence this year. Additionally, they bought Texas'
Western Merchandisers, Inc. from Amarillo. The "Made in America" program for Sam's American
Choice brand items was also introduced in 1991 with the aim of encouraging American suppliers to
increase production and decrease prices.

Sam Walton received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on March 17, 1992, from US President George
H. W. Bush. Disney passed away on April 5, 1992. S. was his oldest son. On April 7, 1992, Robson
Walton took over as chairman of the corporate board of directors. This year, Walmart operated in 45
states, with presences in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, and Puerto Rico added later.

The Walmart International Division was established in 1993, and Bobby Martin was named as its
president. Additionally, the business grew into Washington, Rhode Island, Alaska, and Hawaii. In
December 1993, its stores also surpassed the $1 billion sales record in a single week.

The Walmart slogan, "Always the low price. Always," was contested by the National Advertising Review
Board in 1994 on the grounds that it implied Walmart's prices were always the lowest and might deceive
certain customers. As a result, Walmart changed its tagline to "Always low prices. Always."

The Code Adam initiative was implemented in Walmart stores the same year, 1994. In the same year,
Walmart bought 122 Woolco stores in Canada and 91 PACE Membership Warehouse clubs from Kmart.
It also has 96 locations in Mexico and built 3 value clubs in Hong Kong.

In 1995, Walmart had 675,000 employees, $93.6 billion in revenues (including $78 billion in US sales),
1,995 discount stores, 239 Supercenters, 433 SAM'S CLUBS, and 276 international stores. With three
new stores in Argentina and five in Brazil, Walmart expanded into its final state (Vermont) and into
South America.

Through a joint venture, the business entered the Chinese market in 1996. Additionally, Walmart in
Dickson City, which had opened in 1992, shuttered as a result of falling debris that hit the back of the
store (since it was constructed onto the side of a mountain). In 1997, Walmart took Woolworth's spot on
the Dow Jones Industrial Average. With $118.1 billion in sales, the business saw its first year with $100
billion in sales. Additionally this year, they opened their OneSource nutrition centers and bought 21
Wertkauf outlets in Germany.

At three of its stores in Arkansas in 1998, Walmart implemented the Neighborhood Market idea.
Neighborhood Market businesses, which are mostly grocery stores, are designed to draw customers by
offering shorter checkout times, easier parking, and less congested aisles than the typical grocery store.
Walmart expands into South Korea on the global stage by purchasing 4 Korea Makro-operated locations.

Also in 1998, Walmart debuted its Wal-Mart Television Network, a sizable in-store advertising network
that features news, movie trailers, concert clips, and music videos for recording artists. It also features
adverts for goods sold in the stores.

The second-largest chain in the UK after Tesco is the Asda one, which became a subsidiary in 1999.

Logo used from 1992 to 2008. This logo is still in use at many locations
as hundreds of stores are being transitioned to the newest logo. They still use this logo on semi-truck
trailers. The first version of this logo used a hyphen instead of a star.

21ST CENTURY

Since 1995, US sales had increased by a factor of two to $156 billion when Lee Scott was appointed
president and CEO. Walmart was ranked fifth on Fortune magazine's list of the world's most admired
companies in the same year, and in 2003 and 2004, it was named the most admired American firm.
By purchasing a small part in Seiyu Group in 2002, which would later become a completely owned
subsidiary of Walmart by 2008, Walmart entered the Japanese market.

In 2005, Walmart had sales of $312.4 billion, more than 6,200 facilities globally, including 3,800 shops in
the US and 3,800 elsewhere, and more than 1.6 million associates working for the company. Only a few
areas of the US were still more than 60 miles from the closest Walmart because of how quickly their
presence there had expanded. Approximately 138 million people worldwide visited Walmart stores each
week. Their corporate charity initiatives also contributed $18 million in cash to the US storm relief
operations. Walmart has expanded into Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica
with the acquisition of equity in Central American Retail Holding Company (CARHCO).

Walmart announced the sale of its 16 South Korean locations on May 22, 2006 to Shinsegae Co, which
renamed the locations as E-Mart. Then, on July 26, 2006, Walmart announced that it was pulling out of
the German market entirely. The 85 stores that were already open were all sold to the Metro Group,
which rebranded the majority of them as Real (hypermarket).

Walmart commissioned Global Insight to create the ads, and the report stated that as of 2006, the retailer
saves American families $2,500 annually (up 7.3% from $2,329, 2004). On September 12, 2007, Walmart
introduced new advertising with the slogan, "Save Money Live Better," instead of "Always Low Prices,
Always." This was the first time in 13 years that Walmart had used this slogan. According to the latest
analysis, consumers saved $287 billion in 2006 as a result of Walmart's pricing cuts, or $957 per
individual and $2,500 per household.

On June 30, 2008, Walmart introduced the new look of the business, which styled the name as
"Walmart". The star has been replaced with a spark, a design chosen to represent Walmart employees. By
purchasing Distribucion y Servicio D&S SA in the beginning of 2009, Walmart entered the Chilean
market. In May 2009, Walmart formed a 50/50 partnership with Bharti to enter the Indian market. A
Walmart in Garfield Heights, Ohio that was constructed on top of a landfill was demolished in 2008 as a
result of poisonous gases.

On February 22, 2010, the business announced that it would buy Vudu, Inc., a provider of online video,
for an estimated $100 million.

Walmart purchased 51% of Massmart Holdings in June 2011. South Africa, Botswana, Ghana, Lesotho,
Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia are
among the African nations that the corporation can now access as a result of this transaction.

Early in 2012, the Massmart transaction was given final government approval. In January 2012, the
single-location Mauritius was shut down.

Walmart workers went on strike in a number of significant American cities in June 2014.

In view of recent developments, including the COVID-19 pandemic, as of July 2021, Walmart has
eliminated all cashiers at neighborhood stores and smaller stores. Only Scan-and-Go self-checkout
stations are available at such sites. By 2025, Walmart Supercenter stores will also have new cashiers
because, on average, only 25% of them are employed while the other 75% are vacant throughout the day.
Logo designed in 2008