Walmart’s e-commerce sales climb by 79% in the fiscal third quarter

Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT) published its earnings report for the fiscal third quarter on Tuesday that blew past Wall Street estimates on the back of a 79% growth in e-commerce sales.

Walmart slipped more than 1% in premarket trading on Tuesday but gained the entire intraday loss on market open. At £114.40 per share, the stock has recovered a little under 50% since its year to date low in March. In comparison, it had a per-share price of £89.86 at the start of the year. Learn more about why do prices rise and fall in the stock market.

Walmart’s Q3 financial results versus analysts’ estimates

According to Refinitiv, analysts had anticipated £99.83 billion of revenue for Walmart in the third quarter. Their estimate for per-share earnings was capped at 89 pence. In its report on Tuesday, Walmart topped both estimates posting a higher £101.71 billion of revenue and £1.01 of earnings per share in Q3.

In terms of same-store sales in the United States, the discounter reported a 6.4% growth in the recent quarter versus a lower 3.9% expected. Coca-Cola and others teamed up to launch the free thanksgiving dinner program through an exclusive promotion with Walmart.

At £3.88 billion, the American multinational’s net income in Q3 was significantly better than £2.48 billion in the same quarter last year. Walmart’s total revenue had come in at £96.65 billion in the third quarter of fiscal 2020.

Walmart also said on Tuesday that Sam’s Club (Walmart’s subsidiary) same-store sales jumped 11% in Q3. Digital sales, on the other hand, climbed by 41% in the recent quarter. In separate news from the U.S., home improvement retailer, Home Depot, also published its quarterly earnings report on Tuesday.

Other prominent figures in Walmart’s earnings report

Other prominent figures in Walmart’s financial report on Tuesday include a 1.3% annualised growth in net sales from its international business to £22.35 billion. Walmart acquired Flipkart in 2018. The Indian e-commerce retailer’s monthly active customers surged to a record-high in the third quarter.

The retail corporation valued its COVID-19 related incremental expenses at £453.07 million in Q3. Walmart refrained from giving guidance for full fiscal 2021. CEO Doug McMillan, however, expressed confidence that digital sales were likely to remain resilient in the upcoming months.

At the time of writing, Walmart is valued at £325.25 billion and has a price to earnings ratio of 24.23.