Walmart (WMT) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending April 30, 2023

May 18, 2023 8:00 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Greetings. Welcome to Walmart's Fiscal Year 2024 First Quarter Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions]. Please note this conference is being recorded. I'll now turn the conference over to Steph Wissink, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Steph, you may now begin.

Steph Wissink - SVP, IR

Thank you and welcome everyone. We are excited to discuss the results of a strong first quarter and our upwardly revised outlook for the year. Joining me on the call are Walmart's CEO, Doug McMillon; and CFO, John David Rainey. Following prepared remarks from Doug and John David, we will take your questions. At that time, we will be joined by our segment CEOs John Furner from Walmart U.S., Judith McKenna from Walmart International, and Kath McLay from Sam's Club. In order to address as many of your questions as we can in the time allotted for this call, please limit yourself to one question. The operator will mute your line after your question has been post. After management has responded we will move to the next person in line.

Today's call is being recorded, and management may make forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the factors identified in our filings with the SEC. Please review our press release and accompanying slide presentation for a cautionary statement regarding forward-looking statements as well as our entire Safe Harbor Statement and non-GAAP reconciliations on our website at stock.walmart.com. Thank you for your interest in Walmart. Doug, we are now ready to begin.

Doug McMillon - President and CEO, Walmart Inc.

Good morning and thanks for joining us to discuss our Q1 results. We had a strong first quarter. Sales growth was strong globally, including growth of 26% in e-commerce. Profit grew much faster than sales and we made further progress on inventory levels. The omnichannel model we're building continues to resonate with customers and members. As expected, a higher mix of sales in the food and consumables categories negatively affected gross profit, but strong expense management and progress with our newer mutually reinforcing businesses helped us grow profit ahead of sales at 17.3%. The business model we outlined at our recent investor conference is taking shape.