Wal-Mart makes push for India; Target to Hawaii

Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s (NYSE: WMT) coming to India -- soon. According to India's Bharti Enterprises' Chairman Sunil Bharti Mitta, Wal-Mart will have stores operating in India in less than a year. Bharti will enter into a joint venture with Wal-Mart to operate a chain of stores, and it has already begun hiring workers. It will be interesting to see what happens, as Wal-Mart failed miserably in Germany and left Korea in June after years of fruitless efforts.

According to the Associated Press, Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) expects to have 2,000 U.S. stores by 2011, and is currently planning to open its first locations in Hawaii and Alaska. Target has said it will eventually expand overseas but is in no rush. According to CEO Robert Ulrich, "In some of the major emerging economies such as India and China one could argue that it's much better to enter 5 years or 10 years down the road when that guest is becoming more affluent, better educated, because that is more in sync with our strategy."

It appears that Target will continue to be a more upscale version of Wal-Mart (waiting for countries to become wealthier before expanding there), while Wal-Mart will look to capitalize on growth in India by offering cheap goods there first.