Assignment 1: Financial Analysis Wal-Mart
March 07, 2013
About Wal-Mart For this assignment, I select Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Wal-Mart is an American public corporation that runs a chain of large discount department stores and a chain of warehouse stores. Wal-Mart operates more than 8,692 retail units across three business segments of retail stores worldwide that offer a wide array of general merchandise including groceries, apparel, electronics, and small appliances. In addition, the company is the world's largest retailer and grocery chain by sales and just over half of the company's sales comes from grocery items. Over 54% of the company's stores are located in the United States, with the majority of international stores located in Central and South America and China. The company focuses on offering the lowest prices across its business segments, which together earned $446.98 billion in revenue in 2012, a 6% increase from sales in 2011 according to Wal-Mart financial statement (2009~2013). Wal-Mart's largest business segment is its namesake Wal-Mart stores. Because of its mammoth size and buying power, Wal-Mart can buy its products at rock-bottom prices, exchanging high purchase volumes for low cost while passing the savings onto its customers. Many suppliers give in to Wal-Mart's pressure because they depend on the discount retailer for a majority of their sales. Due to Wal-Mart's low prices, consumers gravitate to Wal-Mart stores during economic downturns. As a result, the company's comparable store sales increased by 3.5% during the worst toughest year. Wal-Mart is a public company and its stocks are traded on stock exchange markets. It has 11,000m stock authorized and 3,780m outstanding. The owners of the company are changing time by time. Nowadays the major direct holders are: Other shareholders are some institutions and mutual funds.
Wal-Mart’s Organizational structure was constructed into a three product