Walmart plans 50 more India stores in next 4 to 5 years

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
May 11, 2018

After announcing its acquisition of Flipkart on May 9, Walmart released a statement on May 10 sharing its plan to open 50 more stores in India over the next four to five years.

On May 10, Walmart held a media roundtable to speak about the Flipkart deal where Walmart acquired a 77 percent stake in one of India’s largest e-commerce platforms. Walmart’s India President and CEO, Krish Iyer, took the opportunity to reveal Walmart’s own expansion plans in India.

“We currently have 21 stores and plan to open 50 stores in four to five years,” said Iyer at the roundtable and also assured that, “Plans are on track.” The long term goal was also explained and Walmart plans to “eventually start opening 12-15 stores a year,” according to Iyer. Planned focus locations for store openings include, “Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttrakhand, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana,” said Iyer.  

This also backs up what Walmart’s US CEO, Doug McMillon, said that the deal will not see Flipkart changing its name to Walmart or being directly managed by the business, at least for the foreseeable future. Flipkart will continue to operate as a separate board-managed company and the CEO will be Flipkart’s Co-Founder Binny Bansal.

However, Flipkart’s other Co-Founder, Sachin Bansal, has left the business due to the deal. Bansal sold his 5.5 percent stake in the company to Walmart and will no longer lead the company.

Walmart is present in nine states and 19 cities in India for its cash-and carry business. The brand has so far not been able to sell directly to customers as the Indian Government’s retail policy does not allow 100 percent foreign owned businesses to sell directly to customers apart from in the wholesale and cash and carry segment.

Now that Walmart owns Flipkart, it can operate as an e-commerce company in India and wholly foreign owned businesses are allowed to do so in the online section of the market.