Holiday’s not so happy for Wal-Mart
BENTONVILLE, Ark. Wal-Mart was supposed to be one of the winners this holiday season, but as its December sales results showed, it too succumbed to negative economic forces, nasty weather, the detrimental effects of currency conversion rates and litigation charges which resulted in a reduction in fourth quarter earnings guidance.
The company reported same store sales growth of 1.7% (1.9% at Walmart stores and 0.1% at Sam’s Club) for the five-week period ended Jan. 2, which was well short of analysts’ estimates that called for a 2.8% increase. Although the December performance disappointed analysts who had grown accustomed in recent months to the company exceeding its estimates, the 1.7% increase was within the company’s guidance for a 1% to 3% increase.
“Due to the difficult economy and severe winter weather in some regions, the holiday season was more challenging for retailers than expected,” said Wal-Mart vice chairman Eduardo Castro-Wright. Weather conditions in several areas of the country caused sales to slow the week prior to Christmas and the company said it was forced to close 40 stores from two hours to nine days. Despite challenges associate with weather conditions and a soft consumer spending environment, Wal-Mart reported that its stores had positive customer traffic for the third month in a row and indicated it performed relatively well given the environment. “We believe we continue to gain market share on the strength of positive traffic in response to Walmart’s price leadership as well as overall customer experience improvements,” Castro-Wright said.
Sam’s Club also experienced challenging conditions, and the warehouse club division’s sales were less than the company expected. Customer traffic increased among both member types, but customers simply spent less as average transaction sizes declined.
“Relative to our plan, sales came very late in the reporting period,” said Sam’s Club president and ceo Doug McMillon. “Our members were clearly cautious with their discretionary spending. Our small business members in particular continue to face more pressure from today’s economy and also are more selective in their purchases.”
The company’s international division also suffered a sales decline during December, but the weakness there was due primarily to the strengthening of the U.S. Dollar against other currencies as international sales declined 10.4% to $10.7 billion. On a constant currency basis that assumes exchange rates remained the same as the prior year, international sales increased 8.3%.
Wal-Mart points out the effect of currency exchange to highlight the performance of its underlying operations which, even though they registered an increase on a constant currency basis, fell below planned results.
“Our customers around the world continue to feel pressure form the current global economy, leading to sales for Wal-Mart International that were below expectation,” said Wal-Mart vice chairman Mike Duke. “As we see consumers focusing on the necessities in this environment, we are reinforcing the value we provide to them through our every day low price philosophy.”
Due to the prevailing weakness in the economy, Wal-Mart said it expect January same store sales to be flat to up 2% and also reduced its fourth quarter earnings guidance. Previous guidance called for earnings per share in a range of $1.03 to $1.07. New guidance calls for earnings per share of 91 cents to 94 cents and reflects litigation expense which negatively impacted the company to the tune of 6 cents per share.
“Considering the impact of currency and litigation charges, we continue to expect our underlying operating performance for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2009 to be at or above the prior year’s quarter,” said cfo Tom Schoewe.