Among other innovations, it set up Tesco Express, combining convenience stores and petrol retailing, Tesco Metro, the small, urban stores and a small number of much larger stores on the hypermarket model including its flagship Tesco Kensington store.

BBC: Lord Maclaurin

Tesco to Metro Bank to PayPal and all-electronic banking organizations like First Direct.

FORBES: Outmoded IT Could "Evaporate" Big Retail Banks - Temenos

"The likes of Tesco, Carrefour and Metro would see themselves as chasing hard in the pack behind Wal-Mart, " said Richard Lloyd-Owen, Deloitte's head of consumer business.

BBC: NEWS | Business | Wal-Mart three times rivals' size

Compare that with domestic market growth for the same period of 2.7% for Walmart, 3.2% for Carrefour, 5.9% for Tesco and 1.6% for Metro.

FORBES: Successful Global Growers: What We Can Learn From Walmart, Carrefour, Tesco, Metro

Citing data from Deloitte, the consulting firm McMillan Doolittle projects that between 2010 and 2015 international growth for the four giant companies will be at a compound annual growth rate of 9.8% for Walmart, 7.7% for Carrefour, 10.5% for Tesco and 7.4% for Metro.

FORBES: Successful Global Growers: What We Can Learn From Walmart, Carrefour, Tesco, Metro

Tesco is also opening stores in India, and Metro will open in Egypt and Kazakhstan.

FORBES: Successful Global Growers: What We Can Learn From Walmart, Carrefour, Tesco, Metro

Tesco, France's Carrefour and Germany's Metro are all aggressively expanding in China, while Wal-Mart plans to hire 150, 000 staff there over the next five years.

BBC: NEWS | Business | Wal-Mart three times rivals' size