Walmart Announces Q4 Earnings

After a year replete with acquisitions, restructuring efforts, and shifting priorities, Walmart has announced strong fourth quarter earnings and robust growth—particularly in e-commerce.

“We're moving with speed to become more of a digital enterprise and better serve customers,” said President and CEO Doug McMillon, in a press release. “We had a very solid fourth quarter with U.S. comp sales growth of 1.8 percent and U.S. e-commerce GMV growth of 36 percent.”

Fourth quarter highlights include:

• Diluted EPS of $1.22
• Total revenue of $130.9 billion, a 1.0% increase. Excluding currency, total revenue of $133.6 billion, a 3.0% increase
• Walmart U.S. comp sales increased 1.8%, driven by a traffic increase of 1.4%. Neighborhood Market comps increased roughly 5.3%
• Robust ecommerce growth for Walmart U.S.—with sales and GMV increasing 29.0% and 36.1% respectively, including Jet.com and online grocery.
• Net sales of $31 billion for Walmart International, a decrease of 5.1%. Excluding currency, net sales of $33.7 billion, a 3.0% increase.

In total, the company generated $11.9 billion in operating cash flow and returned $3.6 billion to shareholders through dividends and repurchases.

Despite recording its largest domestic same-store sales increase in nearly five years, news source CNBC noted that revenue fell short of many expectations—in large part due to foreign exchange rates and food deflation.

“Our international business is consistently delivering solid sales growth in constant currency, and Sam's Club posted its best comp sales growth of the year,” McMillon noted in the company’s statement. “I want to thank our talented associates for their work. We have more work to do, but I'm pleased with our progress.”

As of February 21, 2:00 PM EST, Walmart's stock was up over 3 percent to reach $71.64.

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