Walmart's shoppers look to be handling high levels of inflation in food and general merchandise relatively well.
"We haven't seen any meaningful difference yet in how they're shopping. We know consumers are focused on inflation, but we're not seeing major changes in shopping patterns," Walmart CFO Brett Biggs tells Yahoo Finance. "Wages are up, unemployment, low. Consumer balance sheets are still in pretty good shape. So I think all of that helps customers."
Walmart (WMT) saw sales strength across the board to close out its year, led by its warehouse division Walmart. While inflation didn't hold back shoppers, it did somewhat hold back profits.
The company said it saw $400 million in higher than expected supply chain costs. Biggs explained the increases mostly came in wages and transportation.
Here is how Walmart performed in the fourth quarter compared to Wall Street estimates:
Total Revenue: $152.87 billion vs. $151.7 billion
Walmart U.S. Same-Store Sales: +5.6% vs. +5.5%
Sam's Club U.S. Same-Store Sales: +10.4% vs. +9.8%
Adjusted EPS: $1.53 vs. $1.51
Shares of Walmart rose 3% to $136.90 in pre-market trading Thursday. Walmart said earnings would grow by a mid-single-digit percentage in 2022, slightly above the paced expected by Wall Street. It also forecast fiscal 2023 adjusted earnings per share to increase 5% to 6%.
The world's largest retailer added it would look to repurchase $10 billion in its own stock this year.
Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and anchor at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.
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