Walmart beats handily on first-quarter earnings per share, revenue

EPS easily clears analysts’ estimates; revenue up more than $6.4 billion

Walmart posts strong FY 2022 first-quarter results. (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)

Walmart Inc. (NYSE:WMT) on Tuesday reported first-quarter fiscal 2022 revenue of $138.7 billion, a 2.7% increase from the 2020 first quarter, while operating income rose 32% to $6.9 billion in what the company called strong across-the-board performance.

Adjusted earnings per share came in at $1.69, easily beating analysts’ median estimates of $1.21 a share. Revenue came in more than $6 billion higher than expectations. Shares were up 3.5% in premarket trading.

Walmart’s U.S. e-commerce sales rose 37% year-on-year, with sales more than doubling in the past two years, the company said. U.S. operating income rose 26.8 year-on-year, the company said.

In a statement, Walmart President and CEO Doug McMillon said the company is more optimistic about the full-year outlook than it was at the start of 2021. To support that view, Walmart raised full-year guidance for several metrics. It now expects consolidated operating income, which includes the U.S. and international operations, as well as its Sam’s Club warehouse stores, to increase by mid-single-digit levels in constant currency. Its prior guidance was for a slight decline in constant currency. Earnings per share is now forecast to rise in the high single digits. Prior guidance was for a slight decline. 

Walmart also sharpened its forecast for companywide revenue, saying it will decline by low-single-digit levels in constant currency. Its prior guidance wasn’t that specific. Walmart expects “continued pent-up demand” in consumption as more people in the U.S. and around the world get vaccinated from COVID-19 and more countries reopen their economies.

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Mark Solomon

Formerly the Executive Editor at DC Velocity, Mark Solomon joined FreightWaves as Managing Editor of Freight Markets. Solomon began his journalistic career in 1982 at Traffic World magazine, ran his own public relations firm (Media Based Solutions) from 1994 to 2008, and has been at DC Velocity since then. Over the course of his career, Solomon has covered nearly the whole gamut of the transportation and logistics industry, including trucking, railroads, maritime, 3PLs, and regulatory issues. Solomon witnessed and narrated the rise of Amazon and XPO Logistics and the shift of the U.S. Postal Service from a mail-focused service to parcel, as well as the exponential, e-commerce-driven growth of warehouse square footage and omnichannel fulfillment.