Wal-Mart entered Canada in 1994 with the acquisition of 122 Woolco stores. By 2004, the company was operating 235 discount department stores and 6 SAM’S CLUBS, which first opened in 2003. The company employed more than 60,000 associates and was the largest retailer in Canada. Wal-Mart Argentina started its operations in August 1995 with the opening of a SAM'S CLUB in the greater Buenos Aires area. In 2004, Wal-Mart was operating 11 supercenters and one distribution center in the provinces of Buenos Aires, Cordoba, Entre Rios, Santa Fe, Mendoza, and Neuquen. The company employed over 4,000 associates in Argentina. In Brazil, Wal-Mart faced stiff competition from the French company Carrefour. However, Wal-Mart made an effort to adapt to local …show more content…
In March 2004, Wal-Mart Brazil announced the acquisition of Bompreco, a retail chain in northeastern Brazil with 118 units. Bompreco was the leading supermarket and hypermarket chain in Brazil's northeast region.10 In Europe, Wal-Mart had entered the U.K. and Germany. ASDA, Britain's best value food and clothing superstore, became part of the Wal-Mart family on July 26, 1999. Entering 2005, the company managed 256 ASDA stores, 7 GEORGE apparel stores, and 21 depots across the U.K., employing around 134,000 colleagues. The Wal-Mart name appeared on a U.K. store for the first time in 2000, when the first ASDA-Wal-Mart supercenter opened in Bristol. By 2004, the company was operating 13 ASDA-Wal-Mart supercenters throughout the U.K. In 2001, Wal-Mart overtook Marks & Spencer as the leading retailer of children’s wear.11 In Germany, the company joined forces with the Aldi Group and acquired 21 Wertkauf hypermarkets in January 1998. Later that year, the company acquired 74 units of the Interspar hypermarket chain. Wal-Mart remodeled these stores and was operating 92 supercenters in Germany in 2004. Wal-Mart Germany employed more than 13,000 associates across the country. Asia represented a tremendous opportunity for discount retailers in general and Wal-Mart