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The retailer conquered America and made it look easy. The rest of the world is a tougher battleground.
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•The World's Leading Companies |
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Map: | •A World of Big Companies |
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Slide Show: | •Top Ten Companies |
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Video: | •Editor's Introduction |
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Poll: | •Which global giant is most likely to top our Forbes 2000 list five years from now? |
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With 3,550 stores in the U.S. and 1,000 Supercenters to be added in the next five years, all that's left for Wal-Mart is mop-up. It already sells more toys than Toys "R" Us, more clothes than the Gap and Limited combined and more food than Kroger. If it were its own economy, Wal-Mart Stores would rank 30th in the world, right behind Saudi Arabia. Growing at 11% a year, Wal-Mart would hit half a trillion dollars in sales by early in the next decade.

But its mesmerizing success in the U.S. masks this fact: Overseas, Wal-Mart has won some--and lost a lot. Just a few victories have been swift: Canada, Mexico and the U.K. More than 80% of its international revenue comes from these three countries.

In Europe it has proven at times adept, at times inept, at acquiring. In China it struggles with a dauntingly primitive supply chain. In Japan it is taking rice-grain-size steps so as not to damage a powerful but backward retail ecosystem. It has achieved runaway success in Mexico, but stumbled among stronger competitors in the huge markets of Brazil and Argentina.

Some big blunders are behind it. Wal-Mart entered Hong Kong in 1994 and left two years later after screwing up merchandise selection and location. It entered Indonesia in 1996, but tucked tail soon after a Jakarta store was looted and torched during the 1997-98 riots. Wal-Mart lost hundreds of millions of dollars in Germany after trying to force its systems on two acquisitions. It has yet to click in South Korea, where its Supercenters misread local tastes and sit too far outside city centers.