Walmart operates 4,610 U.S. stores. At a 30-minute drive radius the network reaches 308M Americans — 92.0% of the U.S. population. Average household income of the reached population: $93,488. Median age: 38.5. Working-age population reached: 188M (61.1% of total reach).
Demographic mix of reached population
Age cohort breakdown of the 308M-person trade area at 30-min drive. Numbers are absolute population counts from /api/trade-area.
- 18-24: 28.4M (9.2% of reached pop)
- 25-34: 42.7M (13.9% of reached pop)
- 35-44: 40.5M (13.2% of reached pop)
- 45-54: 37.8M (12.3% of reached pop)
- 55-64: 38.9M (12.6% of reached pop)
- 65+: 50.7M (16.5% of reached pop)
Trade-area overlap with Target
Walmart: 4,610 U.S. stores reaching 308M Americans. Target: 1,978 U.S. stores reaching 267M. Pairwise overlap computed at 30-min drive isochrone, H3 resolution 7.
Union of reachable population: 311M (92.9% of U.S.).
Both-chains reach: 264M — 84.7% of union.
Walmart-only reach: 44.5M — population within 30 min of Walmart but NOT Target.
Target-only reach: 3.1M — population within 30 min of Target but NOT Walmart.
Higher overlap percentage = the two networks compete more directly for the same trade-area population. 84.7% overlap means roughly 84.7% of the jointly-reachable U.S. population can shop either chain within 30 min, which sets the upper bound on customer-share competition between the two.
Methodology
Drive-time matrix. 1.083B routed pairs (origin H3 cell × destination H3 cell × 5/10/15/30/60-min drive). Built on OpenStreetMap U.S. extract via OSRM contraction-hierarchy.
Demographics. U.S. Census ACS 2023 5-year, block-group level, projected onto 12.86M H3 res-8 cells via overlap-weighted area apportionment.
Overlap. overlap_pct = both_pop / union_pop. Computed cell-by-cell with set operations; no smoothing.
What this post does NOT include. Named-MSA whitespace candidates (the platform's whitespace endpoint returns H3 cells with lat/lng, not MSA names). Store-to-store cannibalization inside a single chain (the platform only computes overlap between two distinct chains, not between sibling stores of one brand). Forward-looking unit-growth projections (these come from management guidance, not the platform).