Walmart India signs 20 new sites, new stores to be operational soon

Walmart India, a local arm of the world’s largest retailer, accelerating its growth network has signed 20 new sites for new stores and will start opening them from the next year.

According to a company executive, the company has already started work in some of the new projects. “As we speak, we have signed nearly 20 sites as well and we are well on our way to be on meeting the commitment and targets which we have,” Walmart India President and CEO Krish Iyer told PTI.

Walmart has plans to add 50 new stores by 2022 to take the total store count to 70. “Out of these 50 stores, 5-7 new stores will become operational next year,” he added.

Presently, the company runs 21 Best Price wholesale stores in nine states. Walmart largely operates in the organized wholesale market. They are also eyeing non-food retail. "We are, of course, interested in food and non-food retail. But doing food retail alone does not make sense because the margins are higher in non-food retail," Iyer had said.

Walmart India is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Walmart Stores Inc and offering close to 5,000 items through its cash and carry wholesale format.

It recently signed a MoU with the Maharashtra government to build 15 cash and carry stores under the brand ‘Best Price’ in the state.

This week, it launched its first fulfillment centre (FC) in Mumbai. The 45,000 square feet fulfillment center is located at Bhiwandi near Mumbai as per an ET report. The fulfillment center also is known as the ‘dark store’. It will stock packaged consumer products and home supplies. The newly opened fulfillment center is aimed to serve kirana stores and other B2B businesses through online orders.

In March 2016, Walmart India posted sales of ₹3,996.8 crore. Net loss fell to ₹140.4 crore, nearly halving from the previous reporting period.

Walmart Competitors

In September 2017 Walmart’s rival Amazon opened its largest fulfillment center in India on the outskirts of Hyderabad.

Amazon has been aggressively investing in setting up fulfillment centers across the country to ensure speedy delivery to consumers. At present, it has over 42 warehouses and 32 fulfillment centers across 13 states in India.