21st Century
In 2000, H. Lee Scott was named president and CEO and US sales had doubled to $156 billion since 1995.
Also in 2000, Walmart was ranked fifth by Fortune magazine on its Global Most Admired All-Stars list, and in 2003 and 2004, as the most admired company in America.
In 2002 Walmart entered the Japanese market by acquiring a minor stake in Seiyu, by 2008 Seiyu would become a wholly owned subsidiary of Walmart.
In 2005, Walmart had $312.4 billion in sales, more than 6,200 facilities around the world, including 3,800 stores in the United States and 3,800 international units, and employing more than 1.6 million associates worldwide. In fact, their US presence had grown so rapidly that there were only small pockets of the country that remained further than 60 miles away from the nearest Walmart. Approximately 138 million customers visited Walmart stores each week all over the world. Their corporate philanthropy efforts also assisted the US hurricane relief efforts with $18 million in cash donations. Through a purchase of stock in Central American Retail Holding Company (CARHCO), Walmart also enters the countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.
On 22 May 2006 Walmart announced the sale of its 16 stores in South Korea to Shinsegae Co, which rebranded the stores to E-Mart. Then on 26 July 2006 Walmart announced its complete pull-out of the German market; all existing 85 stores were sold to the Metro Group which rebranded most of the stores to Real (hypermarket).
On September 12, 2007, after 13 years, Walmart introduced new advertising with the slogan, "Save Money Live Better," instead of "Always Low Prices, Always." It commissioned Global Insight for the ads and the report stated that as of 2006, the retailer saves American families $2,500 yearly (up 7.3% from $2,329, 2004). The new research found that the reduction in price levels due to Walmart resulted to savings for consumers of $287 billion in 2006, which is $957 per person or $2,500 per household.
On June 30, 2008, Walmart unveiled the company's new logo, which stylized the name as "Walmart". A spark, a symbol chosen to represent Walmart associates, replaces the star.
In early 2009 Walmart entered the country of Chile by acquiring Distribucion y Servicio D&S SA. Then in May 2009 Walmart entered into a 50/50 partnership with Bharti to gain access to the Indian market.
On February 22, 2010, the company confirmed it is acquiring the video streaming company Vudu, Inc. for an estimated $100 million.
In June 2011, Walmart acquired 51% of Massmart Holdings. This acquisition gives the company access to the African countries of: South Africa, Botswana, Ghana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
The Massmart acquisition received final governmental approval in early 2012. Also the one store in Mauritius was closed in January of this same year.
Read more about this topic: History Of Walmart
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