Plans 71 stores in India over the next five to seven years.

Global retail major Walmart will open 10 cash and carry wholesale stores in Telangana over the next five to seven years, the company’s India President and CEO Krish Iyer said on Saturday.

Four of them will come up in Hyderabad, the capital city that hosts the lone facility of Walmart in the State. Typically the investment will $10-12 million per store, Mr. Iyer said at the signing of an agreement with the State government here.

Warangal, Karimnagar and Nizamabad, among tier-II and III cities, are locations where other stores are to be set up in Telangana. Job opportunities, direct as well as indirectly, for 2,000 people would be created by each store, he added. The size of the stores is in the range of 50,000-60,000 sq ft each.

For Walmart, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in south India, Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh in the north and Maharashtra are the focus States for expansion. It plans to add 50 more facilities thus taking the number of wholesale stores in the country to 71 in the next 5-7 years.

“We are ready for rapid growth of our business... look forward to working with small mom and pop shops, SMEs,” Mr.Iyer said.