Pollas

Asda
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For other uses, see Asda (disambiguation).
Asda Stores Ltd. |
|
Type | Private company subsidiary |
Industry | Retail |
Founded | Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, England (1965) |
Headquarters | Asda House, Leeds, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom |
Number of locations | 523 (as of August 2011) |
Key people| Andy Clarke
(CEO and President)
Judith McKenna
(COO) |
Products | Grocery, General merchandise, financial services |
Revenue | see Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. |
Operating income | £638 million |
Employees | 143,126 |
Parent | Walmart |
Website | www.asda.co.uk |
Asda Stores Ltd. is a British supermarket chain which retails food, clothing, general merchandise, toys and financialservices. It also has a mobile telephone network, (via the Vodafone Network), Asda Mobile. Its head office is at Asda House in Leeds, West Yorkshire.[1]
Asda became a subsidiary of the American retail giant Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer,[2] in 1999,[3] and is the UK's second largest chain by market share after Tesco.[4] In December 2010, Asda's share of the UK grocery market stood at 16.5%.[5]Asda's marketing promotions are usually based solely on price, with Asda promoting itself under the slogan Britain's Lowest Priced Supermarket, 14 Years Running. As a wholly owned division of Wal-Mart, Asda is not required to declare quarterly or half-yearly earnings. It submits full accounts to Companies House each October.
Contents * 1 History * 2 Marketing * 3 Corporate socialresponsibility * 4 Asda Smart Price * 5 George clothing * 6 Stores * 6.1 Current stores * 6.2 Former stores * 7 Distribution * 8 Other interests * 9 Loyalty card * 10 Internet operations * 11 Financial performance * 12 Employee relations * 13 Dairy price fixing * 14 Asda Mobile * 15 Awards * 16 See also * 17 References * 18 External links |
History

Asda'sHeadquarters, Asda House in Leeds

Asda, West Bridgford, Nottingham

Asda in Bury St Edmunds
Asda Stores Limited was founded as Associated Dairies & Farm Stores Limited in 1949 in Leeds. The adoption of the Asda name occurred in 1965 with the merger of the Asquith chain of three supermarkets and Associated Dairies; Asda is an abbreviation of Asquith and Dairies, often capitalised.[6] For ashort time in the 1980s Asda Stores Ltd was a subsidiary of Asda-MFI plc following a merger between the two companies. Other companies in the group were Associated Dairies Limited, the furniture retailer MFI and Allied Carpets. After the sale of MFI and Allied Carpets the company name changed to Asda Group plc. The dairy division was sold in a management buyout and renamed Associated Fresh Foods,[7]meaning that Asda has since had no connection with one of the firms its name was derived from.
With stores mainly based in the North of England, the newly focused food retail group expanded further south in 1989 by buying the large format stores of rival Gateway Superstores for £705 million. This move overstretched the company and it found itself in trouble trying to sell too many differentproducts.[8] As a result it was forced to raise money from shareholders in both 1991 and 1993. It revived under the leadership of Archie Norman, who later became a front bench Conservative MP. CEO from 1991, Norman was chairman of the company during the period 1996–99, and replicated the store on the basis of United States retail giant Wal-Mart, even sending protégé Allan Leighton to Bentonville,Arkansas to assess and photograph the systems and marketing which Wal-Mart had deployed.[9]
In 1997, the Spice Girls licensed their name and image to Asda in which they created over 40 different Spice Items for Christmas 1997 developing goods such as party supplies, official merchandise, and even Spice Girl branded kids meals in the stores' restaurants. The Spice Girls earned £1 million for this...