According to Market Watch, Walmart Stores Inc. is investing more than $100 million in its wholesale-store network in India, even though government restrictions have convinced it not to build its own big-box stores in Asia’s third-largest economy.
The world’s largest retailer has given its Indian unit a capital injection of 6.2 billion rupees ($103 million) to help it boost its current presence in India in the next five years to 70 wholesale stores--where it sells only to other businesses like mom-and-pop shops, restaurants and hotels--from 20 today. It is also ramping up its online operations so it can give its wholesale customers 24-hour delivery for anything they order online.
Walmart has been lobbying for lowering barriers to foreign investment in the retail sector in India. It entered the wholesale business in 2009, expecting to eventually get the freedom to open its own supermarkets aimed directly at Indian consumers.
