We have selected Walmart and Target as our companies. Both companies are big-box retailers and both cover the consumer-staple and consumer-discretionary markets. The retail industry, in which Walmart and Target compete, is one of the world’s biggest industries. In the United States, 2015 saw over five trillion dollars in retail sales. Retail companies rely on both in-store and e-commerce sales to produce revenue. E-commerce has been growing in popularity and the retail stores are seeing more and more online purchases. Retail stores sell both consumer staples (must have items such as food, drink, and toiletries) and consumer discretionary (unimportant items such as apparel, entertainment items, and appliances). Big-box stores such Walmart and
…show more content…
is a publically traded company on the New York Stock Exchange and is comprised of all Walmart and Sam’s Club stores throughout the world. Walmart is one of the biggest retailers in the world. Walmart has just over 5200 stores in the United States alone with another 6200 stores internationally comprising 27 countries. Walmart also employs 2.3 million workers throughout the world. As a company Walmart also produces their own items for sale in addition to selling numerous other brand-name items. They focus on five main product categories: grocery, home and apparel, technology, health and wellness, and fuel/other. These products along with many other brands of product sold by Walmart Stores Inc. leads to large numbers of inventory. In the past year Walmart recorded having over 44 billion dollars of inventory. With that much inventory you would suspect Walmart has a huge surplus of current assets, but Walmart’s net working capital at its last annual filing was negative 4.38 billion dollars. Moreover, Walmart has a debt ratio of 58 percent, which some people may find troubling. Indeed, Walmart may carry a lot of debt but it needs to be remembered that Walmart has asset and stockholder equity numbers in and near hundreds of billions of dollars. Walmart also had revenues in excess of 480 billion dollars at their last reporting. Walmart’s revenue numbers are usually much higher than the competitors as well, typically more than doubling the revenue of their closest
is a publically traded company on the New York Stock Exchange and is comprised of all Walmart and Sam’s Club stores throughout the world. Walmart is one of the biggest retailers in the world. Walmart has just over 5200 stores in the United States alone with another 6200 stores internationally comprising 27 countries. Walmart also employs 2.3 million workers throughout the world. As a company Walmart also produces their own items for sale in addition to selling numerous other brand-name items. They focus on five main product categories: grocery, home and apparel, technology, health and wellness, and fuel/other. These products along with many other brands of product sold by Walmart Stores Inc. leads to large numbers of inventory. In the past year Walmart recorded having over 44 billion dollars of inventory. With that much inventory you would suspect Walmart has a huge surplus of current assets, but Walmart’s net working capital at its last annual filing was negative 4.38 billion dollars. Moreover, Walmart has a debt ratio of 58 percent, which some people may find troubling. Indeed, Walmart may carry a lot of debt but it needs to be remembered that Walmart has asset and stockholder equity numbers in and near hundreds of billions of dollars. Walmart also had revenues in excess of 480 billion dollars at their last reporting. Walmart’s revenue numbers are usually much higher than the competitors as well, typically more than doubling the revenue of their closest