• Financial Times, MSN/AP, Friday, March 13, 2009 11 AM

Wal-Mart will open two pilot Supermercado de Walmart grocery stores in Phoenix and Houston this summer in what it calls "strongly Hispanic neighborhoods." Staff will be bilingual and the stores -- re-modeled 39,000-square-foot locations occupied previously by Wal-Mart's Neighborhood Market -- will feature new layouts, products and signage "designed to make them even more relevant to local Hispanic customers," Jonathan Birchall reports.

Wal-Mart's Sam's Club warehouse store also plans to open a 143,000-square-foot, Hispanic-focused store called Más Club in Houston this year. Several chains already operate Hispanic store brands, including Publix in Florida, which operates three Publix Sabor markets, and HEB in Texas, which opened a Mi Tienda store in Houston in 2006.

Charles Holley Jr., Wal-Mart's evp of finance, meanwhile, said the company is pulling even further ahead of its rivals. "We have widened the competitive moat," he said during the Bank of America consumer conference Thursday, promising that it will remain "the low-price leader."

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