Walmart holiday season online sales soar 43%

Walmart Inc., the biggest offline retailer in the United States, has announced its holiday-quarter sales report.

As reported, it is the strongest holiday quarter the company has witnessed in at least a decade. Also, no signs of weakness in US consumer spending has been noted so far.

Walmart holiday season online sales surged whopping 43 percent.

Walmart and competitor Target Corp.’s surprisingly sturdy increase in holiday sales showed the strength of the US consumer spending.

“We still feel pretty good about the consumer. We haven’t seen much of a change. The data we are seeing still looks pretty healthy. Gas prices are down year over year, which helps,” Walmart Chief Financial Officer Brett Biggs informed Reuters.

Markedly, US retail sales recorded the sharpest drop in over nine years in December 2018. However, overall sales for the 2018 holiday season hit a six-year high as shoppers were encouraged by early discounts, according to a Mastercard report in late December.

Walmart sales at US stores open at least a year increased by 4.2 percent in the fourth quarter ended January 31, 2019.

Total revenue of the company increased by 1.9 percent to US $ 138.8 billion.

The retailer is reportedly working with third-party couriers and freelancers, drivers, who are cheaper than full-time employees, to cut down costs.

Further, Walmart repeated its forecast that fiscal 2020 income per share would dive in the low single digits in percentage terms, compared with 2018. Excluding the acquisition of Indian e-commerce firm Flipkart, it sees an increase in the low- to mid-single-digits.

Reportedly, the company is also upset over India’s revised e-commerce regulations, which ban companies from selling products through firms in which they have an equity interest and also bar them from making deals with sellers to sell exclusively on their platforms.

“We hope for a collaborative regulatory process going forward, which results in a level playing field,” the retailer said.