Walmart

On July 2, 1962, Sam Walton opened the first Walmart in Rogers, Arkansas. The business incorporated in 1969, offered its stock to the public in 1970 and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1972, with capital-market financing supporting its subsequent store expansion.⁠[1]

In 1983, the first Sam’s Club opened in Midwest City, Oklahoma. In 1988, Walmart opened its first Supercenter in Washington, Missouri, combining groceries and general merchandise in a single retail format.⁠[1]

In 1991, Walmart entered Mexico through a partnership with Cifra, and in 1994 it entered Canada. In 1996, the company entered China and launched Walmart.com, gradually building a structure in which international stores and online business developed side by side.⁠[1]

From 2015, Walmart had a commercial relationship with Warehouse Technologies LLC, the predecessor of the warehouse automation company SymboticSymboticSymbotic is a warehouse automation company headquartered in Wilmington, Massachusetts, whose autonomous mobile robots, robotic arms and artificial intelligence software store, sort and dispatch pallets, cases and individual items in distribution centers; its shares trade on Nasdaq under the symbol SYM. Founded by Richard B. Cohen of C&S Wholesale Grocers, it went public in 2022 through a merger with a SoftBank-affiliated special purpose acquisition company. Walmart is its largest customer and a major shareholder, accounting for about 85% of revenue in fiscal 2025.Open the full entry, and its affiliates; in 2017 it entered into a Master Automation Agreement with the company to implement its systems in 25 of Walmart’s 42 regional distribution centers, and the agreement was amended and restated in 2019. An amendment in April 2021 further expanded the partnership. Over the course of the relationship, Walmart received warrants to purchase Warehouse Technologies units, exercisable only upon the satisfaction of certain commercial conditions. On December 12, 2021, Walmart entered into an Investment and Subscription Agreement with Warehouse Technologies.⁠[2][2][3][3][2][2]

In May 2018, Walmart announced plans to invest about $16 billion in the Indian e-commerce company FlipkartFlipkartFlipkart is a Bengaluru-based Indian e-commerce group that Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal started as an online bookstore in 2007. Walmart took a majority stake in 2018, and the group completed its redomiciliation to India in 2026 as it prepares for an Indian listing.Open the full entry for an interest of about 77%. The deal included about $2 billion in new funding for Flipkart, giving it resources to keep developing its e-commerce, logistics and payments businesses; the investment also expanded Walmart’s presence in India’s digital retail market.⁠[4]

In June 2019, Walmart reached resolutions with U.S. regulatory and enforcement agencies over Foreign Corrupt Practices Act issues in its overseas operations. The SEC found that the company had failed to maintain sufficient anti-corruption internal controls in its operations in several countries; the payments to the SEC and the Department of Justice totaled more than $282 million. The matter concerned the company’s internal controls and compliance responsibilities.⁠[5]

In 2020, Walmart launched the Walmart+ membership service, integrating delivery and other member benefits into its retail business and continuing to develop a model that combines physical stores with online shopping.⁠[1]

On May 20, 2022, the two companies amended and restated the Master Automation Agreement, extending the deployment of Symbotic’s systems to all 42 of Walmart’s regional distribution centers and adding about $6.1 billion to Symbotic’s backlog. At the same time, Walmart exercised warrants with $103,980,327 of working capital to acquire 267,281 units of Warehouse Technologies, about 3.7% as calculated after the exercise; Warehouse Technologies also issued Walmart a new warrant to purchase 258,972 units at $614.34 per unit.⁠[2][2][2][2][3]

On June 7, 2022, Warehouse Technologies completed, through a reorganization, a merger with SVF Investment Corp. 3, which changed its name to Symbotic Inc. Under the investment agreement, as long as Walmart holds at least 42,902,037 shares of Class A common stock or interests convertible or exchangeable into Class A shares, it has the right to designate a Walmart employee of a certain seniority level to attend Symbotic board meetings as a nonvoting observer; Walmart is also bound by a standstill that bars it from acquiring additional voting securities, initiating a merger or tender offer, soliciting proxies and similar actions.⁠[2][2][2][2][2][2][2]

On December 3, 2024, Walmart completed its acquisition of VIZIO at an equity value of about $2.3 billion. VIZIO’s connected TVs and SmartCast platform added a channel for reaching consumers to the Walmart Connect advertising business and further extended the company’s revenue sources into retail media.⁠[6]

On January 15, 2025, Walmart and Symbotic entered into a purchase agreement for the sale of all equity interests in Walmart’s wholly owned subsidiary Walmart Advanced Systems & Robotics (ASR); the transaction closed on January 27, with Symbotic paying $200 million in cash, plus two deferred cash payments of $175 million each, payable only upon Walmart’s acceptance of the first accelerated pickup and delivery system (APD) and upon its exercise of an option for additional systems, respectively.⁠[7][7][8][7]

At closing, the two companies entered into a new Master Automation Agreement under which Symbotic develops, manufactures and installs APD systems for online order pickup and delivery at Walmart stores: subject to the systems meeting defined performance metrics, Walmart committed to purchase 400 units, with an option for 200 more; Walmart also pays Symbotic a total of $520 million in research and development fees, with $230 million at closing, $165 million one year later and $125 million two years later. The agreement has an initial term of 12 years; while Walmart owns more than 5% of Symbotic’s fully diluted equity, it may recommend one independent director candidate to the board’s nominating committee, and its existing board observer right is extended accordingly.⁠[3][7][7][7][7][7][7][7]

As of June 27, 2026, Symbotic was operating several micro-fulfillment systems under the agreement and was developing an advanced micro-fulfillment system for future deployments. In fiscal 2025 (ended September 27, 2025), Walmart was Symbotic’s largest customer, accounting for about 85% of its total revenue and for a significant majority of its $22.5 billion backlog.⁠[8][3]

On December 9, 2025, Walmart’s stock moved from the New York Stock Exchange to the Nasdaq Global Select Market, continuing to trade under the ticker WMT.⁠[9]

In 2026, John Furner took over as Walmart’s chief executive officer. The company’s fiscal 2026 revenue was about $713 billion; annual materials released in April 2026 listed about 2.1 million associates and about 10,900 stores in 19 countries, with consumers also served through e-commerce channels.⁠[10]

As of August 2026, Walmart beneficially owned 76,350,823 shares of Symbotic Class A common stock, consisting of 15 million shares held directly and shares obtainable by exchanging the 61,350,823 Symbotic Holdings operating units it held; this was about 39.9% on a Class A basis, about 12.6% of all outstanding common stock on a fully diluted basis, and about 5.4% of total voting power. Its holdings had not changed since December 2023, with the change in percentage resulting from changes in the number of Symbotic Class A shares outstanding.⁠[11][11][11][11][11][11]

In early October 2026, Walmart opened its fifth next-generation fulfillment center, a highly automated 900,000-square-foot facility in Stockton, California. In the same period, difficulties in its warehouse automation drew attention: some cardboard boxes were too big for automated machines to handle; wheeled self-driving robots that move products within warehouses broke down too often; many warehouses, built in the 1980s and 1990s, had to be retrofitted with automation, and different locations used a wide variety of robotic systems from multiple vendors for different tasks. A key goal for Walmart is to automate the assembly of pallets in warehouses so that stores can unload and stock shelves more efficiently; the company currently employs more than 140,000 warehouse workers, while the engineers needed to maintain automated equipment cost more than typical warehouse workers, and electricity at an automated grocery facility can cost as much as about $800,000 a month, compared with about $250,000 previously.⁠[12][12][12][12][12][12][12][12]

In automating e-commerce order fulfillment at stores, Walmart has invested nearly $1 billion since 2016, during which it bought and then sold Alert Innovation, the technology partner previously handling the project; the earlier system rolled out in 20 stores proved too inefficient. Walmart is now testing a new version of the system with Symbotic at a store in Dallas, and Symbotic expects its new SymMicro system to be running in about six months, after which it could expand to more Walmart locations. Walmart said new technology is never perfect on day one, that if it had waited for perfection its associates and customers would not be getting the benefits they experience today, and that it is constantly learning and adjusting.⁠[12][12][12][12][12][12][12]