A worker collects shopping carts at a Walmart store.
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Retail giant Walmart reported better-than-expected fourth-quarter earnings Thursday and boosted its dividend.
The stock was rising slightly in premarket trading to $133.63.
Walmart (ticker: WMT) reported earnings per share of $1.53 in its fiscal fourth quarter ended in January. Analysts expected it to earn $1.50 a share, compared with per-share earnings of $1.39 a year earlier. Revenue was $152.9 billion, up 0.5%, which also beat the FactSet consensus of $151.72 billion.
Net income was $3.56 billion, or $1.28 a share, compared with a loss of $2.09 billion, or 74 cents a share, a year earlier.
Comparable-store sales increased 6.3% year over year for both Sam’s Club, the company’s wholesale retail segment, and Walmart, not including fuel sales.
Sam’s Club saw membership increase 9% and sales of $19.2 billion.
Supply-chain costs were $400 million higher in the quarter than planned, the company said on an earnings call Thursday. Covid-related leave costs were $300 million more than expected. Despite the challenges, the company remains optimistic in its ability to limit passing the rising prices on to consumers.
“We’re seeing about the same number of rollbacks now that we had at the end of Q1 last year so we have supply-chain challenges and other costs coming through,” said John Furner, president and CEO of Walmart U.S., on the call. “The team did do a nice job managing mix and pricing and are looking after both our customers and our shareholders.”
The company said it was on track to hit its 2023 financial targets, expecting U.S. comparable-sales growth of above 3%, not including fuel, and per-share earnings growth in the mid-single digits. Analysts expect same-store sales growth of 2.7% and earnings of $6.70 a share.
Additionally, the company said it raised its quarterly dividend by 1 cent to 56 cents a share, and also plans to repurchase $10 billion of its own stock in fiscal 2023.
Walmart stock has fallen more than 8% since the start of the year.
Write to Logan Moore at [email protected]
