Walmart India to open 50 best price stores in four years, says CEO Krish Iyer

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Walmart India, the local arm of Walmart, is looking at opening 50 best price stores over the next four to five years, said Krish Iyer, president and CEO of the company, adding that “India is a key growth market for Walmart”.

The company already owns and operates 21 best price stores in India.

Along with opening best price stores, it is planning to expand its footprint on the fulfillment centre front.

The wholly owned subsidiary of Walmart Inc has announced the launch of its second fulfillment centre in India, which is located in Lucknow. It will cater to the business needs of businesses like kirana stores, hotels as well as restaurants. Walmart’s first FC was opened in Mumbai in November 2017.

The combination of FC’s and best price stores will help Walmart reach a larger number of customers across the country. It already has a million active members and is seeing a healthy growth in numbers.

The company gets about 50 percent of its sales from stores and the remaining from e-commerce and business development agents. With increasing focus towards B2B e-commerce, Walmart expects to make deeper inroads into the market.

Walmart India is also exploring plans to build a cold chain infrastructure. The company is willing to partner with other companies to build this infrastructure.

Without disclosing investment figures, Iyer said that the focus is to clock a healthy topline growth. “We have a plan for the next 10 years in terms of the strategic direction … expect a good healthy double digit topline growth going forward,” he said.

If the company is able to maintain this scale of growth, Walmart should be able to achieve a billion dollars of revenue on India before 2025, said Iyer.

Even as the focus is on growing the cash and carry business, Walmart is also looking forward to getting approval from the CCI on the Flipkart deal.

Iyer expects all regulatory approvals to be granted in a timely manner. He, however, refused to share any details on the integration or synergy with Flipkart.

Iyer made it clear that Flipkart will continue to be run independently. Best practices from Walmart will be shared with Flipkart and that will result in a win-win situation for the two, said Iyer.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow