Thursday, April 10, 2008

Wal-Mart's International Sales Surge by 19%


Wall Street Journal--Wal-Mart reported today a 0.7% rise in U.S. same-store sales excluding fuel, the lower end of its forecast (see top chart above, click to enlarge). The firm's Sam's Club chain posted a 0.7% drop because of losing a day of sales to Easter closures. That hurt sales by 2 to 2.5 percentage points, the company said.

Wal-Mart's namesake chain had a 0.9% increase amid continued strength in groceries, health and wellness and entertainment. Wal-Mart described Easter sales as "good" despite the holiday's earliness this year shortening the season's selling period. Home-related sales remained weak.

What didn't make it into the WSJ's report was Wal-Mart's strong international performance (at stores in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom), with a 5-week sales increase of almost 19% (see bottom chart above), which might suggest that the economic slowdown in the U.S. has not spread internationally, and also suggests that U.S. companies can remain profitable from strong international sales despite a domestic slowdown.

“We are pleased with the overall performance of our International markets,” said Mike Duke, vice chairman responsible for Wal-Mart International. “We had strong sales performance in key countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Brazil and China.”

3 Comments:

At 4/10/2008 10:10 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Was at a seminar on cataract surgery. One of the patients had seen an eye doctor at Wallmart who had referred him to the cataract surgeon. His cataracts were so bad that he had been unable to drive. He said that he never thought he would ever have Wallmart to thank for anything. In our community in Ontario, there is a shortage of othamologists. Patients are required to travel to the neighbouring community to see an eye specialist.

Thought it was interesting in light of your recent postings regarding health clinics in Wallmart.

 
At 4/10/2008 11:23 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

That'd go a long way to explain the junk after Sam's departure. If the US is a laggard in their eyes, are they going to go after anything of quality? No.

The only thing they want to do with the US is antagonize it at this time.

 
At 4/14/2008 2:04 PM, Blogger juandos said...

"That'd go a long way to explain the junk after Sam's departure. If the US is a laggard in their eyes, are they going to go after anything of quality? No."...

What the heck?!?!

Can someone translate that?

 

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