India’s Next on Wal-Mart’s Expansion Agenda

April 23rd, 2012 by Trefis Team
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Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT) seems keen to grab a share of the growing e-commerce market in India, the world’s second most populous nation. It is in talks with leading e-commerce companies for a potential strategic partnership. [1] With increasing penetration of Internet and smart phones, the e-commerce market in India has gained momentum and big e-commerce companies such as Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) have shown interest in its growing e-commerce market. For instance, in February of this year, Amazon launched junglee.com which offers 12 million products across 25 categories.

Wal-Mart’s online revenues represent about 2% share of its total sales, which is very small given the reach and scale of its operations. It has undertaken several technological initiatives to boost its online operations, and has made a series of acquisitions including Yihaodian, Grabble, Kosmix, among others, to build its presence in this space.

In India, the retail giant operates through a joint venture with Bharti Enterprises and has 17 stores to date. Increasing mobile and Internet penetration would likely lead to impressive growth in the Indian retail market in the coming years.

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According to Business Monitor International, the Indian retail market is expected to double to $785 billion by 2015 from $396 billion in 2011, [2] and we think Wal-Mart could gain handsomely from this growth by aggressively expanding its online presence in the country.

We have a price estimate of $72.53 for Wal-Mart, implying a premium to the current market price.

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Notes:
  1. See: Walmart may enter online retail in India, Business Standard [↩]
  2. Pantaloon Climbs in Mumbai as India Approves Overseas Stakes in Retailers, Bloomberg [↩]