Wal-Mart set to meet half a trillion sales

Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, will soon reach half a trillion US dollars in sales, according to the latest forecasts from international food and grocery analysts IGD.

The IGD stats also reveal that Tesco is set to grow its global business by 7.5 per cent a year.

With a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.5 per cent between 2010 and 2015, Tesco is set to be the fastest growing retailer of the global grocery top four. Driven by sharing best practice in areas like loyalty and services across its markets, and particularly by activity in Asia, it will grow sales to €106,074m by 2015 (compared with €73,777m in 2010).

The world’s largest retailer in 2015 will remain Walmart, with a CAGR of 4.7 per cent taking global sales to €401,753m. It will pass half a trillion US dollars in 2014

By 2015 the top four global grocery retailers will account for €717,208m of turnover, of which 43 per cent will be derived from their international operations

IGD ceo Joanne Denney-Finch said: “Global retailers that want to achieve the highest growth rates are those that are building a presence in emerging markets. Rapid urbanisation and a growing middle class will create big opportunities in countries like Brazil, China, Russia and India.

“With retailer investment plans heavily focused on these emerging markets, food and drink manufacturers will need to keep pace if they want to be part of the growth. Each market is different and nobody should take their eye off the mature and domestic markets which still provide the bulk of sales for the international players.”