- Walmart is the largest grocery retailer within the US by a protracted shot.
- The corporate reported greater than $264 billion in US grocery gross sales final 12 months, persevering with its dominance.
- By comparability, Kroger and Albertsons mixed gross sales have been about $229 billion.
Walmart is legendary for promoting absolutely anything you may consider, however buyers depend on the retail large extra for groceries than for every other class offered within the firm’s 4,600 US shops.
What’s extra, extra buyers are getting their groceries from Walmart than from every other retailer, and it isn’t even shut.
Practically one in 4 grocery {dollars} within the US is spent at Walmart, greater than double the share that buyers spend at Kroger or Costco, based on client analytics agency Numerator.
That each one provides as much as greater than $264 billion spent on groceries at Walmart US areas in 2023, up from $247 billion and $219 billion within the previous two years.
Not solely are top-line gross sales rising, their proportion of whole division revenues is ticking up from about 55% three years in the past to roughly 60% final 12 months. And these numbers do not even embody Walmart-owned Sam’s Membership.
After all, Walmart has been America’s grocery king for some time now, however the numbers from its most up-to-date annual report filed Friday with the SEC actually drive the concept residence.
Walmart’s scale can also be notably salient in gentle of the Federal Commerce Fee’s current lawsuit that seeks to dam the merger of the highest two pure-play grocery store firms within the US: Kroger and Albertsons.
Kroger, the bigger of the 2, did roughly $150 billion in whole gross sales final 12 months, whereas Albertsons has notched a bit greater than $79 million in its most up-to-date 12 month interval. (The businesses’ fiscal years do not match.)
Taken collectively, that is roughly $229 billion, or $35 billion lower than Walmart. By comparability Goal’s meals and beverage revenues final 12 months have been about $23.9 billion.
Whereas Kroger’s proposed $24.6 billion acquisition of Albertsons would certainly be the “largest grocery store merger in US historical past,” because the FTC notes, it nonetheless would not end in Walmart’s dethroning.
Nonetheless, the FTC’s criticism is much less centered on the dimensions of the potential grocery store mega-firm than on the impression the deal would have on competitors between the present rivals.
The FTC notes that US buyers get their groceries from a wide range of retail codecs that are not essentially direct opponents to supermarkets: warehouse golf equipment like Costco and Sam’s Membership, restricted assortment shops like Aldi and Dealer Joe’s, premium grocers like Complete Meals, greenback shops like Greenback Common and Greenback Tree, and naturally e-commerce retailers like Amazon.
The place does Walmart match into that image? Properly, it is in a league — and a dimension — of its personal.
