Walmart Jeffery Armitage ACC205: Principles of Accounting Instructor: Mark Stricklett October 2, 2017 Company Overview As most of us know, Walmart is one of the top retail chains in the U.S. and it’s currently expanding overseas as well. The history of Walmart goes back to 1962 when Sam Walton opened the very first ‘Wal-Mart Discount City’ in Arkansas. There were 24 stores with sales totaling $12.7 million by 1967, and Walmart officially became a corporation in 1969. In the 70’s Walmart became a publicly traded company as well as making it onto the New York Stock Exchange. The 80’s was a ‘Decade of Firsts’ for the corporation. The first Walmart Supercenter opened and they hit their first $1 billion in annual sales, which was faster …show more content…
During the 90’s they also hit a $1 billion sales week as well as a $100 billion sales year. The ‘New Millennium’ found Walmart at the top of the Fortune 500 rankings of America’s largest companies they introduced the U.S. shoppers to Walmart.com. The company also reached $400 billion in annual sales during this time. In 2012, Walmart celebrated its 50th anniversary. Today there are over 11,000 retail units in 27 countries and 2.2 million employees around the world. Along with doing so well in sales, Walmart is dedicated to helping the environment. They are striving to use 100% renewable energy resources, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and preserving natural wildlife. They are doing things like this by using solar and wind power, filling trucks just a little more to reduce miles driven, finding newer and better ways of recycling products while reducing the waste, and for every acre they develop they purchase an acre of wildlife land to preserve. The company also has goals of hiring so many military veterans as well as boosting the diversity of associates from women to people of different ethnicities. (Paragraph summarized from Walmart.com – Corporate, 2014) Walmart sells everything you could possibly need to stock an