Aldi to invest $3.4 billion to expand its U.S. store base
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Aldi operates 1,600 U.S. stores and earlier this year said it would add another 400 by the end of 2018 and spend $1.6 billion to remodel 1,300 of them.
The investment, which raises Aldi's capital expenditure to at least $5 billion so far this year, comes at a time of intense competition and disruption in the industry.
The latest store expansion will create 25,000 U.S. jobs and make Aldi the third-largest grocery chain operator in the country behind Wal-Mart and Kroger, the German chain said in a statement.
Aldi's 2,500 stores would equal about 53 percent of Wal-Mart's U.S. outlets. ■