With other retailers dialing back projections, the nation’s largest retailer raised its financial outlook Thursday after its strong third quarter, setting itself up for a strong holiday shopping season.
So analysts will be focusing on consumer health heading into the holiday shopping season and more details on how Furman will fill the hole that will be left by McMillon. Analysts expect Furman to continue the strategies pushed forward by McMillon.
Walmart has also looked for new sources of revenue like advertising and launched a membership program called Walmart + to compete with Amazon Prime, its rival’s free shipping program.
Such strategies have helped bolster Walmart’s results in the latest quarter.
Third-quarter profits rose to $6.14 billion, or 77 cents per share, in the quarter ended Oct. 31. That compares with $4.58 billion, or 57 cents per share, for the year-ago period.
Adjusted earnings was 66 cents for the quarter.
Sales rose nearly 6% to $179.5 billion, up from $169.6 billion in the year-ago period.
Analysts were forecasting a profit of 60 cents on sales of $177.44 billion, according to FactSet.
Comparable sales — those from sales from established physical stores and online channels— at U.S. namesake stores rose 4.5% in the fiscal third quarter. In the previous quarter, sales for that measure were up 4.6%.
Global e-commerce sales rose 27%,. That follows a 25% jump in the second quarter and a 22% growth in the first quarter.
The company said that it now expects adjusted profits per share for the fiscal year to be in the range of $2.58 to $2.63, up from the early guidance offered in August of $2.52 to $2.62 per share.
It also said that its expects sales for the year to be up anywhere from 4.8% to 5.1%. That’s up from its earlier estimates of 3.75% to 4.75%.
Analysts were predicting $2.61 per share, according to FactSet analysts.
