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|operating_income = $4.792 billion (2014)〔 |net_income= $2.698 billion (2014)〔 |assets= $31.827 billion (2014)〔 |equity= $9.968 billion (2014)〔 |num_employees = 265,000 (2014)〔 | traded_as = S&P 500 Component | homepage = }} Lowe's Companies, Inc. is an American company that operates a chain of retail home improvement and appliance stores in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Founded in 1946 in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina, the chain has 1,840 stores in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Expansion into Canada began in 2007 with the opening of a store in Hamilton, Ontario in early 2008. Lowe's started the construction of two stores in the Mexican city of Monterrey officially entering the Mexican market.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Lowe's - Construcción Y Decoración Bajo El Mismo Techo )〕 In 2011, Lowe's released plans to build over 150 stores in Australia (as Masters Home Improvement) over the next five years, hoping to compete with the A$46 billion industry. Lowe's Companies, Inc. is ranked #50 on the Fortune 500 list.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Fortune 500 - Fortune )〕 As of 2010, the chain is based in Mooresville, North Carolina. Lowe's is the second-largest hardware chain in the United States behind The Home Depot and ahead of Menards. Globally, Lowe's is also the second-largest hardware chain, again behind The Home Depot but ahead of the European stores B&Q and OBI. ==History== The first Lowe's store, Lowe's North Wilkesboro Hardware, was first opened in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina in 1921 by Lucius Smith Lowe (1879 - 1940), who had Baptist background.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Caleb Anson Lowe (1820 - 1902) - Find A Grave Memorial )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Lucius Smith Lowe (1879 - 1940) - Find A Grave Memorial )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=John Anton Lowe (1850 - 1914) - Find A Grave Memorial )〕 When Lowe died in 1940, the business was inherited by his daughter Ruth, who sold the company to her brother Jim that same year. Jim took on Carl Buchan as a partner in 1943. Under Buchan's management, the store focused on hardware and building materials. Before then, the product mix had also included notions, dry goods, horse tack, snuff, produce, and groceries. The company bought a second location in Sparta, North Carolina in 1949. Buchan and Lowe differed on expanding the company to new areas and they split in 1952 with Buchan (himself) taking control of the hardware and building supply business and Lowe taking other joint ventures the two controlled (including a car dealership). Buchan became the sole owner of Lowe's. In 1954, Lowe started the Lowes Foods grocery store chain. By 1955, Buchan quickly expanded by opening stores in the North Carolina cities of Asheville, Charlotte, and Durham. More stores opened through the 1950s. In 1960, Buchan died of a heart attack at the age of 44. His five-man executive team, which included Robert Strickland and Leonard Herring, took the company public in 1961. By 1962, Lowe's now operated 21 stores and reported annual revenues of $32 million.〔"Carolinas FYI: About Lowe's and Lowes," ''The Charlotte Observer'', March 16, 2003.〕 Lowe's began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in 1979. Lowe's suffered in the 1980s due to market conditions and increasing competition from the new big-box store chain, The Home Depot. For a while, Lowe's resisted adopting the mega-store format partly because Lowe's management believed the smaller towns where Lowe's mostly operated would not even support huge stores. However, Lowe's eventually had to adopt the big-box format in order to survive. Today, most Lowe's stores are part of the big-box variety, although some classic format stores remain in smaller markets. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Lowe's」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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