The TJX Companies, Inc., the leading off-price apparel and home fashions retailer in the U.S. and worldwide, was ranked 97 in the 2021 Fortune 500 company listings. At the end of 2020, the Company had more than 4,500 stores in nine countries, four e-commerce sites, and approximately 320,000 Associates. We operate T.J. Maxx and Marshalls, HomeGoods, Sierra, and Homesense, as well as tjmaxx.com, marshalls.com, sierra.com, and launching soon - homegoods.com, in the U.S.; Winners, HomeSense, and Marshalls in Canada; and T.K. Maxx in the U.K., Ireland, Germany, Poland, Austria, the Netherlands, and Australia, as well as Homesense in the U.K. and Ireland, and tkmaxx.com in the U.K..
At TJX, our mission is to deliver great value to our customers every day. We do this by offering a rapidly changing assortment of high quality, fashionable, brand name and designer merchandise, all at amazing values. Our inventories turn rapidly, which allows us to buy close to need, with more visibility into current fashion and pricing trends. In 2020, we sourced merchandise globally from a universe of approximately 21,000 vendors and over 100 countries. Our world-class buying organization of over 1,100 Associates is constantly focused on seeking the right categories, fashions, and brands, while also testing new ideas.
Just as our mission has remained steadfast for nearly 45 years, so has our commitment to acting as a responsible corporate citizen. Looking back to 2020 and into 2021, we, like the rest of the world, face the challenges of navigating a global pandemic and addressing the call for equity and racial justice. These challenges, in tandem with other important issues, including climate change, have helped us continue to define and evolve our current corporate responsibility priorities, whether that is prioritizing the health and well-being of our Associates and customers, or taking additional actions to expand our efforts to support a more inclusive workplace.