Walmart Inc.
Q1 2023 Earnings Call
May 17, 2022, 8:00 a.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Greetings. Welcome to Walmart's fiscal year 2023 first quarter earnings call. [Operator instructions] Please note, this conference is being recorded. I'll now turn the conference over to Dan Binder, senior vice president, investor relations.
Dan, you may begin.
Dan Binder -- Senior Vice President, Investor Relations
Thank you, Rob. Good morning, and welcome to Walmart's first quarter fiscal 2023 earnings call. I'm joined by members of our executive team, including Doug McMillon, Walmart's president and CEO; Brett Biggs, executive vice president and chief financial officer; John Furner, president and CEO of Walmart U.S.; Judith McKenna, president and CEO of Walmart International; and Kath McLay, president and CEO of Sam's Club. In a few moments, Doug and Brett will provide you an update on the business and discuss first quarter results, that will be followed by our question-and-answer session.
Before I turn the call over to Doug, let me remind you that today's call is being recorded and will include 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.
It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to Doug McMillon.
Doug McMillon -- President, Chief Executive Officer, Walmart
Good morning. Thank you for joining us to hear about our results. We had a good quarter from a top-line point of view. Sale for the period were ahead of what we expected across all segments, and we're pleased with the momentum we see so far in Q2.
The bottom line was below our expectations due primarily to three areas that negatively affected operating income in our U.S. businesses, both in Walmart and Sam's Club. Each of these items represents about one-third of our overall profit miss. The first item is wage expense.
As the omicron variant case count declined rapidly in the first half of the quarter, more of our associates that were out on COVID leave came back to work faster than we expected. We hired more associates at the end of last year to cover for those on leave, so we ended up with weeks of overstaffing. That issue was resolved during the quarter, primarily through attrition. The second item relates to our general merchandise inventory level, primarily in Walmart U.S.