American investor Warren Buffett has sold 850 million euros’ worth of Walmart shares, leaving him with virtually no stock in the American store giant at all because he does not believe Walmart will be able to compete with online giant Amazon.
Trail Amazon
Buffett first bought Walmart shares in 2005, but has gradually been lowering his stake in the company because of its online problems despite its recent online investments. In 2012, former CEO Mike Dune said the company was late to the online party, which may have given it an insurmountable setback compared to the online players.
Walmart spent several billions in its online sales channel, but still only garnered a small market share. Its online turnover reached 13.7 billion dollars (13 billion euro) in 2015. This may seem a lot, but its total turnover was 482 billion dollars (460 billion euro). If one compares to Amazon, the online player managed a 107 billion dollar (100 billion euro) turnover in 2015, a lot more than what Walmart accomplished.