Walmart's global sales grow 5.7% in Q4 without Flipkart's Big Billion Days earnings boost

US retailer Walmart on Thursday saw its fourth-quarter ecommerce and international sales impacted by shift in Flipkart's Big Billion days.

Its international net sales grew 5.7% to $34.3 billion on a constant currency basis, helped by its businesses in China, Mexico and Canada, but offset by a change in timing of its Indian arm's shopping festival.

"We saw positive traffic and unit growth across markets with sales strength in general merchandise during festive events. As expected, the timing of Flipkart's Big Billion Days event negatively affected year-over-year sales comparisons," John David Rainey, Chief Financial Officer, Walmart Inc said in a post-earnings conference call.

Its ecommerce sales grew just 4% in the fourth quarter as the timing of Flipkart's flagship shopping festival, Big Billion Days (BBD), was shifted from Q4 in 2023 to a majority in Q3 2024.

However, its ecommerce sales grew 20% in the second half, suggesting strong contributions from BBD during the third quarter along with growing penetration of its ecommerce business.

"Global ecommerce penetration is now 18% of sales, about 1,100 basis points higher than it was in FY20," noted Rainey.

Earlier today, PhonePe, which is majority owned by Walmart, announced its plans to prepare for a public listing on domestic bourses.

"The PhonePe business took to, by the end of 31st of January, hit 1.7 trillion TPV (total payments volume) and they have 310 million transactions daily. It's a very strong business and we're excited to make the announcement that they are going to commence their preparation towards IPO," Kathryn McLay said in a post-earnings conference call.

The US-listed giant clocked 5.3% year-over-year growth in total revenues to $182.6 billion on a constant currency basis, along with a adjusted profit of 66 cents per share in the December quarter.