Wal-Mart: The Global Retailer Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the world. In fact, it's the largest company in the world, with revenue last year of nearly $220 billion. Of this total, $35.5 billion came from Wal-Mart's fast-growing international division. Wal-Mart is growing at an incredible rate, both at home and abroad. By the early 1990s, its sales were just under $85 billion; it had 2,200 stores and no international division. Today it has over 3,200 stores, of which approximately 1,100 are outside the United States. Even as Wal-Mart continues to open stores in the United States, the greatest opportunity for future growth lies in international expansion. Wal-Mart first "went overseas" to Canada when it purchased 122 Canadian Woolco stores in 1993. By mid-2002, it had 196 stores in Canada, where it was ranked the top retailer and the ninth-best company for work. After its move north, the retail giant turned south to Mexico, using joint ventures and sometimes buying companies outright. Wal-Mart opened its first Mexican store in 1991. By mid-2002 it had opened 66 supercenters, 47 Sam's Clubs, 454 Superama supermarkets, 51 Suburbia Apparel outlets, 245 restaurants under the VIPs division, and 110 Bodego units with a limited assortment . of discounted goods. In the first half of 2002, sales in Mexico totaled $4.9 billion, and the company announced plans to add 60 new stores in Mexico by the end of 2003. Obviously, Mexico was a big success for Wal-Mart. Mart moved to another Latin market, Puerto Rico. During the next 10 years, Wal-Mart opened 11 more Puerto Rican stores. In 2002 it announced that it would purchase Supermercados Amigo, Puerto Rico's second largest grocery retailer. After the purchase, Wal-Mart would have 47 stores and about $1.5 billion in Puerto Rican sales. Sensing that the market was good, Wal-Mart intended to invest another $400 million in Puerto Rico over the next five years. It later moved to South America. In late 1995, Wal-Mart opened stores in Brazil and Argentina. These were Wal-Mart's most disappointing initiatives in the Western Hemisphere. For one thing, Argentina's economy is in trouble; The Argentine presidency appears to be a revolving door and inflation is soaring. There's not much Wal-Mart can do about these environmental factors, but it has kept 11 stores there in hopes that the economic picture will eventually change. The picture in Brazil is a little brighter.