Walmart Raised Guidance, Black Friday Might Boost Even Further
1min read Walmart raised its guidance for the year and surpassed third-quarter revenue and profit forecasts as lingering inflation pushed wealthier consumers to its low-price products.
The company increased its financial guidance for the second time this year and now projects net sales will rise by between 4.8 and 5.1 percent in the 2025 fiscal year.
We had a strong quarter, continuing our momentum, CEO Doug McMillon said in a statement. In the US, in-store volumes grew, pickup from store grew faster, and delivery from store grew even faster than that.
Walmart notched gains across all product categories and income cohorts, primarily driven by upper-income households.
The company is actively embracing generative AI to improve its services, covering everything from warehousing and logistics to order delivery and shopping guidance. Without AI, completing the same amount of work in the same time frame would require hiring several times more employees.
The upcoming Black Friday might further boost Walmart's performance. U.S. consumer confidence is strong, and retail sales data have exceeded expectations for several months. Black Friday has traditionally been the main battleground for e-commerce platforms like Amazon, but Walmart's strategy is giving Amazon a lot of competition, LSEG Director of Consumer Research Jharonne Martis said. They're giving the consumer the ability to shop the way they want to, whether it be ordering it on your mobile and picking it up at the store on your way home or just having it delivered right from the store to your house.
Walmart's e-commerce marketplace is getting very close to being profitable. There's more buy-in from the investor base in the alternative revenue streams that Walmart's been pursuing, which are faster-growing and higher-margin businesses that should drive better profitability for the company in the long term.