Financial Times Reporting that Wal-Mart Will Enter Small Supermarket Industry to Compete With Tesco

As Tesco aims to break into the U.S. supermarket industry with a "fresh and easy model," the Financial Times is reporting that Wal-Mart is likely to follow suit with its own chain called "Marketside."

Excerpt:

"The new pilot stores are about 20,000 sq ft, a 10th of the size of the Supercenters that have been driving Wal-Mart’s growth over the past two decades.

The retailer has secured leases on four properties south-east of Phoenix, some of them only a mile from locations where Tesco is setting up its 10,000 sq ft discount grocery stores.

The stores, likely to be open by the summer, are the first new concept launched by the retailer in the US for a decade, and are being developed as the company slows its planned growth of Supercenters."