Growing Globally To Serve More Companies

Our dual growth strategy. Walmart International achieved a milestone by surpassing the $100 billion net sales mark for the year. Our fastest growing division is expected to continue an aggressive pace through strong organic growth and acquisitions. In fiscal 2010, we added more than 500 units, all from organic growth. Walmart Canada continues to increase sales through its supercentre expansion program. Brazil, China and Mexico continue to offer significant opportunities to add new stores and serve more customers. We will grow in our countries by winning locally. Each country’s management team works strategically, using a winning customer proposition by store format and by the total market. We must remain relevant to the customer in order to grow, and our management teams have the freedom to operate within their overall framework to tailor store format, merchandise and price points to the needs of each individual market. We also continue to work closely with governments where we operate, by aligning with them to drive economic growth, including jobs.

Leverage scale and expertise. We are focused on leveraging both operating expenses and our scale to improve performance and profitability. Sharing our knowledge and best practices helps drive efficiencies and increase sales within the country and across regions. We also recognize that one solution can’t meet the needs of every country, as customers trust their local brands to be relevant to their needs. Adhering to the “productivity loop” – buying for less, operating for less and selling for less – remains critical to our success. We closed the year by leveraging expenses as a division on a constant currency basis, before the impact of our acquisition in Chile, and we are committed to further improvements this year, including decreasing the inventory “days on hand.”

Improve returns. We will balance our significant growth with our goal of improving returns. The risk profile of more mature markets like the United Kingdom helps provide the balance for significant growth opportunities in emerging markets like Brazil, China and India. We are disciplined in our capital efficiency, as our returns are more predictable on organic growth than acquisitions.