Financial Analysis of Walmart Walmart Term Paper

This was able to guarantee the company a steady and sustainable growth, encouraging a constant profitability over this period of time.

Further more, the company is well-known for its principles of improving its performances and attempting to be more efficient in everything it does. Throughout its existence, the American retailer has focused on implementing information technology techniques in almost all its activities as the common belief was that automatization drives lower costs, lower prices, lower inventory, shorter delivery time and so on. Following these principles religiously, Wal-Mart has become one of the most efficient players in the entire American market, not just in its industry. Efficiency then was logically driving higher productivity rates and increased profitability for the shareholders.

Part D Company Report

The American retail market is dominated by 3 major players: Wal-Mart, Target and Kmart (see table 2). In 2005, the WalMart's market share was 8.82% increasing 0.2% from the previous year and consolidating its leader position on the U.S. market. As we can see from the figures below, WalMart's market share is around 7 times greater than its two nearest competitors, Target and Kmart. The company's position on the market comes to sustain the arguments in favor of its profitability.

Further more, all sources in the industry generally sustain the idea that WalMart remains one of the most solid and profitable businesses in any industry. The strong financial figures previously analyze clearly reflect this. Any potential legal or ethical problems that WalMart may have, along with risks associated to the global expansion, are not likely to affect its position on the market.

Table 2 - U.S. Retail Industry ($ millions)

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, companies' corporate websites

Bibliography

WalMart 2006 Annual Report. On the company's website, last retrieved on September 2, 2007

Fortune 500 (2007),…