Walmart Enters India via Bharti Finally!

And yes, retail is one sector which will immensely benefit the customers, as more and more players come in. Some players will even die out under cutting each other, but the customers won't complain.

I hope it don't heat up the already heated up real estate market. Walmart, fo course, usually sets up shop out of town, but the competitors in a mad rush to compete will set up more shops in the not-so-out-of-towns.
In the news,

After months of waiting for a policy change that would allow foreign companies to enter multi-product retailing, Wal-Mart, a company with annual sales of $312 billion (Rs14,00,000 crore), threw in the towel and tied up with telecom bigwig Sunil Mittal for a 50:50 joint venture.

Wal-Mart would, ideally, have preferred to come to India on its own, but the current policy allows foreign companies entry only into single-brand retailing or wholesale trading.

The Bharti-Wal-Mart agreement, announced on Monday, will thus have Bharti running the shops and Wal-Mart managing the backend sourcing, supply logistics, and wholesale cash-and-carry businesses. But contrary to what people believe, the real power of Wal-Mart, the company that pioneered everyday-low-prices for shoppers to become the world’s biggest retailer, lies in its backend process.

Over the next few years, Wal-Mart will be making investments to the tune of $1 billion to make its presence felt across the length and breadth of the country. [more]

And yeah, its been a surprise that Bharti tioed up with Walmart.
Suni8l Mittal had once told that, now that Airtel is on an auto pilot mode, he is looking at more business opportunies. His Agri Business is also doing very well, what with his knack of tieing up with the best of the industry. Even in retail, I couldn't have expectd anything less than Walmart. Walmart will eventually want to run the show on its own, regulaters willing, and by that time Bharti would have learnt the ropes. After all who could have started a telecom empire from selling telephone sets.
Expect something different from Bharti.
Perhaps the biggest agri-products supplier to Walmart?
Logistics providers to all the Retailers?
Or with Indian Companies becoming overly acquisition happy, it would be good to see Bharti staging a bid for Walmart. Ah!! India will have arrived.

What is Ratan Tata Doing?