Walmart sees India as a $1-trillion market by 2025

Country has uniqueness: CEO McMillon

LUCKNOW, UTTAR PRADESH, 23/07/2018:WALMART INDIA OPENS FULFILLMENT CENTRE IN LUCKNOW. Walmart India President and CEO, Krish Iyer, inaugurating the 1st B2B Fulfillment Centre at Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, first in North India on July 23, 2018. Its a second fulfillment centre in India after the firstone at Mumbai. It will support Kiranas and other small businessmen and significantly contribute to the local and state economy by creating 1500 direct and indirect jobs. "This FC will strengthen our B2B wholesale business in Lucknow and stepup our B2B e-commerce model which will enable, kiranas, resellers and other businesses in city and adjoinning areas within a radius of 100kms upto Kanpur, Raebareli, Amethi, Hardoi, Barabanki, Sitapur etcs to get access to a wide range of assortments of merchandise without stepping out of their stores", explained Krish. Photo: Rajeev Bhatt

The Indian retail segment has its own uniqueness and the country is one of the most exciting markets globally that is poised to grow to over a trillion dollars by 2025, according to Walmart Inc. president and CEO Doug McMillon.

Speaking at the Converge@Walmart event, Mr. McMillon noted that given the diversity of the Indian market, the company has to “think local and execute locally.”

“India is such a diverse market, it’s not one country in some ways and so we have to think local and execute locally, and it has its own rules, and so, we’ve got to comply with those rules.”

Mr. McMillon added that currently, Walmart is not allowed to make a foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail and so, it operates in a different way.

“We think the future is very bright, and we are going to see a market that is North of [a] trillion U.S. dollars by 2025, I believe. And the way that it is evolving is common in some ways with what we see in other countries, but has its own uniqueness, which makes it exciting,” Mr. McMillon said.