Walmart

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

Walmart logo
Company type	Discount department store/Public (NYSE: WMT)
Industry	Retail
Founded	July 2, 1962; 64 years ago (1962-07-02) (in Rogers, Arkansas)
Founder	Sam Walton
Headquarters	Bentonville, Arkansas Elmira, New York (Walmart Radio) , United States
Number of locations	10,000
Area served	Worldwide
Key people	Sam Walton (1918–1992), Founder H. Lee Scott, CEO S. Robson Walton, Chairman Thomas Schoewe, CFO
Products	Discount stores, grocery stores, and hypermarkets
Revenue	$523.964 billion USD (FY 2020)
Operating income	21,952,000,000 United States dollar (2007)
Net income	$14.881 billion USD (FY 2020)
Total assets	252,496,000,000 United States dollar (2021)
Number of employees	2.0 Million (2022)
Website	http://www.walmart.com

Walmart is an American chain of department stores founded in 1962 by Sam Walton in Bentonville, Arkansas. It sells household goods, furniture, groceries, and a plethora of other items. As of 2026, Walmart operates around 10,900 retail locations in 19 countries, operating under many different names. As of the first fiscal year quarter of 2026, Walmart employed approximately 2.1 million individuals.

As of 2026, Walmart also operates over 4,700 pharmacies within its retail locations. Walmart also operates vision centers offering eyeglass prescriptions and selling eyeglasses in 13 American states.

In 2024, Walmart closed down all of their 51 health centers, laid off all of their in-store medical doctors, and shut down their Walmart Health Virtual Care services.

Walmart's global presence

Walmart can be found in a lot of places around the world. It is mostly found around the United States but can also be found in Canada, Mexico, some Asian countries, some African countries and some South American countries. Walmart has not yet reached Oceania.

Asda was part of Walmart from 1999 to 2021, when it was sold to the Issa brothers and TDR Capital. Walmart still has a stake in it.

Criticism

Walmart is criticized for having a poor record on labor rights, especially regarding anti union activity. It has also been criticized for once promoting products made in America. Now it largely imports the products it sells,from developing nations. Many of these jobs replaced manufacturing jobs in the US. Walmart retail jobs replaced many mom-and-pop stores in the US. In 2005, movie director Robert Greenwald made a documentary movie called Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price that criticized Walmart. After this movie was announced, director Ron Galloway made a film that ended up being released at the same time called Why Walmart Works and Why That Drives Some People CRAZY. This movie had a positive view of Walmart.

References

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