Walmart to buy Vizio as Q4 earnings top expectations

Walmart Inc (NYSE: WMT) is trading slightly up in premarket on Tuesday after reporting market-beating results for its fiscal fourth quarter on the back of a solid holiday quarter and double digits growth in eCommerce sales.

Walmart stock gains despite muted outlook

Investors are cheering even though the management issued somewhat of a muted guidance for the future. Walmart now forecasts its adjusted per-share earnings to fall between $1.48 and $1.56 in Q1.

Analysts, in comparison, were at $1.60 per share. Still, Doug McMillon – the chief executive of Walmart Inc said in a press release on Tuesday:

The big box retailer expects up to 5% annualised growth in sales in the current quarter. $WMT is now up roughly 15% versus its low in early December.

Walmart Q4 earnings snapshot

• Earned $5.49 billion versus the year-ago $6.28 billion
• Per-share earnings also declined from $2.32 to $2.03
• Adjusted EPS printed at $1.80 as per the earnings report
• Revenue went up 6.0% year-over-year to $173.39 billion
• Consensus was $1.65 a share on $170.71 billion revenue
• U.S. customer transactions increased 4.3% in Q4

Walmart U.S. noted a 4.0% increase in comparable sales while the metric for Sam’s Club came in up 1.9% in the fourth quarter. CEO McMillon also said on Tuesday:

Walmart is buying TV maker Vizio

Walmart Inc also revealed plans of spending $2.3 billion on buying Vizio - a TV company based out of Irvine, California on Tuesday.

The retail behemoth is convinced that this $11.50 a share acquisition will help expand its footprint in advertising; a business unit that grew some 33% in Q4. Seth Dallaire - the executive vice president of Walmart U.S. said today:

Note that $WMT raised its annual dividend by 9.0% this morning to 83 cents a share. In January, Walmart Inc said it will open/expand over 150 stores in the United States in the coming years. The multinational committed to raising wages of its store managers and announced a 3-for-1 stock split last month as well.