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As of July 2004, in the United States, the company operated a large number of stores
As of December 2003, these stores employed 1,500,000 people.
Outside of the U.S., the company operates stores in Mexico (626 stores), the United Kingdom (269, mostly ASDAThis article is about the supermarket chain, for other meanings, see ASDA (disambiguation) ASDA is a chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom offering food, clothing and general merchandise products. The name is a contraction of Associated Dairies and supermarketA supermarket is a store or market that sells a wide variety of goods including food and drinks, drugs, clothes, and other household products that are consumed regularly. It is often part of a chain that owns or controls (sometimes by franchise) other sups), CanadaCanada historically the Dominion of Canada is the second-largest, and northernmost, country in the world. It is a decentralized federation of 10 provinces and 3 territories, governed as a constitutional monarchy, and formed in 1867 through an act of Confe (236), BrazilThis article is about Brazil, the country. For other article subjects named Brazil see Brazil (disambiguation). The Federative Republic of Brazil Republica Federativa do Brasil in Portuguese) is the largest and most populous country in South America. (144), GermanyThe Federal Republic of Germany ( German: Bundesrepublik Deutschland is one of the world's leading industrialized countries, located in the middle of the European Union. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark and the Baltic Sea, to the east (92), and Puerto RicoThe Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ("Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico") is a self-governing unincorporated organized territory of the United States located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic. Puerto Rico, the smallest of the Gr (54). Wal-mart also has between ten and fifty stores in ArgentinaArgentina is a Spanish-speaking country in southern South America, situated between the Andes in the west and the southern Atlantic Ocean in the east. It is bordered by Paraguay and Bolivia in the north, Brazil and Uruguay in the northeast and Chile in th, ChinaThis article is on the geographic and cultural entity. For other meanings, see China (disambiguation). China ( Traditional Chinese: , Simplified Chinese: , Hanyu Pinyin: Zhongguo, Wade-Giles: Chung-kuo) is a country in continental East Asia with some oute, and South Korea.
Sam Walton, the founder of Wal-Mart, opened the first Wal-Mart store in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962. The company is publicly traded at the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol WMT and has its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas. As of March 31, 2004, there were 333,604 shareholders of Wal-Mart's common stock.Wal-Mart operates large discount retail stores selling a broad range of products such as clothing, consumer electronics, drugs, outdoor equipment, guns, toys, hardware, CDs and books. It typically stocks basic rather than premium products. Wal-Mart also operates "Supercenters" which include grocery supermarkets. Sam's Club stores are also owned by Wal-Mart; these are "warehouse clubs" which, like Costco, require membership dues.
Wal-Mart's chief competitors as discount retailers include the Kmart Corporation and the Target Corporation.
Each Wal-Mart store has an employee at each entrance, known as a "greeter", whose primary responsibility is to welcome people to the store. Wal-Mart refers to its employees as Associates, and encourages management to think of themselves as "servant leaders". The training video You've Picked a Great Place to Work promotes the "essential feeling of family for which Wal-Mart is so well-known." (Ehrenreich pp. 143-4) Employees start the work day with a store-wide meeting and the "Wal-Mart cheer".
U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton ( Democrat, New York) formerly worked as a lawyer for Wal-Mart and also served on its Board of Directors.