Asda is a British supermarket chain that was founded in 1965. It is headquartered in Leeds, West Yorkshire.
The company has been owned by the American retail giant Walmart since 1999. In the UK, Asda operates under the name Asda Stores Limited.
Asda was originally founded as an acronym for Associated Dairies & Farm Stores Limited. The company was formed by a merger of two Yorkshire-based dairy companies, Associated Dairies and Farm Stores Limited. The new company had its headquarters in Bradford, West Yorkshire.
Asda opened its first store in 1965 in Castleford, West Yorkshire. The store was a self-service format and sold groceries, dairy products, and household goods. Asda expanded rapidly throughout the 1970s and 1980s, opening new stores across the UK.
In 1999, Asda was acquired by Walmart for £6.7 billion ($10.8 billion). At the time of the acquisition, Asda had 347 stores and employed around 60,000 people. Walmart continued to operate Asda as a separate subsidiary and maintained the Asda brand name in the UK.
In recent years, Asda has been facing increased competition from other Supermarkets such as Tesco and Sainsbury’s. In response, Asda has been investing in improving its online offering and has been expanding its network of smaller convenience stores.
As of 2021, there are 579 Asda stores across the UK. The company employs around 140,000 people. Walmart also owns a minority stake in another British supermarket chain, Morrisons.
Why is Walmart called Asda in the UK?
The simple answer is that Walmart bought the grocery store chain called Asda back in 1999 and kept the name because it was already well-known and respected in the United Kingdom at that time.
