There’s nothing quite as American as Walmart $WMT.
The world’s largest retailer employs about 1.5 million Americans, or about 1% of the total private-sector workforce in the US; it is the biggest private sector employer in 19 states. The close-to-$500 billion in annual revenue it makes means that Walmart sells more than Apple $AAPL, Amazon $AMZN and Microsoft $MSFT combined. And new research shows just how much it touches the lives of all Americans.
NPD Group, a market research organization, which tracks millions of online and in-store receipts, says that 95% of all US consumers shopped at a Walmart store in 2016. By comparison, Amazon reached less than half of all US consumers last year—at 42%.
McDonald’s and Target $TGT each reached over 80% of all US consumers last year.
NPD says that Chick-fil-A was the biggest gainer from restaurants in the top 25, with a 5 percentage-point increase to 47% in 2016. Dollar Tree $DLTR was the biggest gainer in retailers, up 3 percentage points to 71%.
