Walmart’s Mexico and Central America divisions plan to invest $15 billion pesos ($1.1 billion) to increase sales floor area and enhance technology for e-commerce business to encourage growth in 2014.
The company said $8.4 billion pesos will go to new stores and a total of 3.7 million square feet in sales floor space will be added in the region. In Mexico, sales floor square footage is expected to increase by 5 percent and 7.6% in Central America.
Of the money to be invested, $3.5 billion pesos ($264.5 million) will go to remodeling and maintenance, $1.2 billion pesos ($90.7 million) to logistics, and $1.9 billion pesos ($143.6 million) will go toward technology, e-commerce and other related areas.
At an annual analysts meeting this week, Walmart’s Mexican division, known as Walmex, also released figures for 2013. Walmex’s gross margin was up 3.8% in 2013 to $93.6 million pesos ($7.1 million) from $90.2 million pesos ($6.8 million) in 2012.
The retailer saw 7.2% sales floor growth in Mexico in 2013 and 6.1% in Central America, and it increased floor square footage by 4.7 million. A total of 235 new stores were opened last year.