Two companies, Walmart and Reliance Industries, have placed structurally opposite bets on what that number means for abusinessmodel. Understanding the difference explains why one is quietly retreating and the other is accelerating. Value At $2,500 per capita, India doesn’t fit the classic Western consumer retailmodel. Walmart entered India through its $16 billion acquisition of Flipkart in 2018, betting that digitizing India’s fragmented retail base would let it rideincomegrowthupward. Rather than waiting forincometo rise, Mukesh Ambani’s team engineered amodelthat profits at currentincomelevels by collapsing the supply chain entirely.