On Thursday, Walmart Inc (NYSE: WMT) surpassed estimates with fiscal first quarter earnings and revenue expectations. The discounter significantly expanded its e-commerce sales and boosted profits with newer businesses, including advertising and its efforts to appeal to more affluent shoppers in order to fight off rivals like Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN). While Walmart is the nation’s biggest retailer, Amazon leads when it comes to e-commerce, but Walmart is determined to stop being the underdog in this rare arena as well as to grow outside groceries.
Fiscal First Quarter Highlights
For the quarter ended on April 30th, the big box retailer reported that sales grew 6% YoY to $161.51 billion, surpassing $159.50 billion that LSEG estimated. Net income also grew from last year's comparable quarter as it amounted to $5.10 billion, or 63 cents per share.
Excluding fuel, Walmart’s same-store sales in the U.S. grew 3.8%. Also excluding fuel, Sam’s Club same-store sales grew 4.4%.
Boosted by its growing third-party marketplace, as well as rise of both store pickup and delivery of online orders, e-commerce sales impressively rose 22% YoY in the U.S. However, despite more visits, both physical ones ...