Retail behemoth Walmart (NYSE:WMT) will be reporting earnings this Thursday before market hours. Here’s what to look for.
Walmart beat analysts’ revenue expectations by 0.8% last quarter, reporting revenues of $177.4 billion, up 4.8% year on year. It was a slower quarter for the company, with a significant miss of analysts’ EBITDA estimates and full-year EPS guidance missing analysts’ expectations.
Is Walmart a buy or sell going into earnings? Read our full analysis here, it’s free for active Edge members.
This quarter, analysts are expecting Walmart’s revenue to grow 4.7% year on year to $177.5 billion, in line with the 5.5% increase it recorded in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings are expected to come in at $0.60 per share.
Analysts covering the company have generally reconfirmed their estimates over the last 30 days, suggesting they anticipate the business to stay the course heading into earnings. Walmart has only missed Wall Street’s revenue estimates once over the last two years, exceeding top-line expectations by 0.7% on average.
Looking at Walmart’s peers in the non-discretionary retail segment, some have already reported their Q3 results, giving us a hint as to what we can expect. Sprouts delivered year-on-year revenue growth of 13.1%, missing analysts’ expectations by 1.1%, and Grocery Outlet reported revenues up 5.4%, falling short of estimates by 0.8%. Sprouts traded down 26.3% following the results while Grocery Outlet was also down 8%.
Read our full analysis of Sprouts’s results here and Grocery Outlet’s results here.
The outlook for 2025 remains clouded by potential trade policy changes and corporate tax discussions, which could impact business confidence and growth. While some of the non-discretionary retail stocks have shown solid performance in this choppy environment, the group has generally underperformed, with share prices down 9% on average over the last month. Walmart is down 5.1% during the same time and is heading into earnings with an average analyst price target of $113.83 (compared to the current share price of $101.58).
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