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Wal Mart Stores, Inc.

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The company was incorporated as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. on October 31, 1969. In 1970, it opened its home office and first distribution center in Bentonville, Arkansas. It had 38 stores operating with 1,500 employees and sales of $44.2 million. It began trading stock as a publicly held company on October 1, 1970, and was soon listed on the New York Stock Exchange. The first stock split occurred in May 1971 at a price of $47 (equivalent to $275.00 in 2015). By this time, Walmart was operating in five states: Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, and Oklahoma; it entered Tennessee in 1973 and Kentucky and Mississippi in 1974. As it moved into Texas in 1975, there were 125 stores with 7,500 employees and total sales of $340.3 million …show more content…

Inside a Walmart Supercenter in West Plains, Missouri In 1988, the first Wal-Mart Supercenter opened in Washington, Missouri.[25] Thanks to its superstores, it surpassed Toys "R" Us in toy sales in the late-1990s.[26] Retail rise to multinational status (1990–2005)[edit] By 1988, Walmart was more profitable than rivals Kmart and Sears and was the dominant retailer in the Bible Belt; by 1990, it outsold both in terms of revenue and became the largest U.S. retailer by revenue.[citation needed] Prior to the summer of 1990, Walmart had no presence on the West Coast or in the Northeast (except for a single Sam 's Club in New Jersey which opened in November 1989), but in July and October that year, it opened its first stores in California and Pennsylvania, respectively. By the mid-1990s, it was far and away the most powerful retailer in the U.S. and expanded into Mexico in 1991 and Canada in 1994.[27] It spread to New England, Maryland, Delaware, Hawaii, Alaska and the Pacific Northwest last, Vermont being the last state to get a store in 1995.[citation needed] The company also opened stores outside the U.S., entering South America in 1995 with stores in Argentina and Brazil; and Europe in July 1999, buying ASDA in the United Kingdom for $10 billion (equivalent to $14.2 billion in 2015).[28] In 1998, Walmart introduced the Neighborhood Market concept with three stores

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