Walmart Stores Inc., the discount retailer, said on Thursday that its profits for the third quarter had increased by 9%, which beat estimates, but that its revenues had fallen short of Wall Street expectations, while sales for same-store increased by 1.5%.
Earnings for Walmart have been challenged of late as it low-income customers who have been the core customers of the store throughout the U.S. try to cope with high unemployment and high prices of gasoline.
Walmart’s net profit was $3.64 billion or just above $1.08 a share, an increase from the same quarter a year earlier of $3.34 billion or only 96 cents a share. Revenue increased 3.4% to more than $113.2 billion but was impacted negatively from the fluctuations of exchange rates, said company officials. Taking out the impact of currency rates, sales would have reached $114.9 billion, executives of the retailer said.
Analysts at Wall Street expected Walmart to earn over $1.07 a share on total sales of nearly $114 billion. Mike Duke, CEO and president of Walmart Stores said the company was pleased with its financial performance during the third quarter and the hard work and dedication of all if its associates that serve communities and customers worldwide.
Duke said the earnings per share were an 11.3% increase from last year’s third quarter. However, same store revenue increased just 1.5%, which fell short of Wall Street’s projections of 4.6%. Sam’s Club same store revenue was up 2.7% compared to the 3% to 5% prediction of growth by the company.
