{"id":46953,"date":"2017-10-11T11:39:24","date_gmt":"2017-10-11T11:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=46953"},"modified":"2017-10-11T11:50:22","modified_gmt":"2017-10-11T11:50:22","slug":"wal-mart-sees-40-percent-online-sales-growth-next-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/business\/wal-mart-sees-40-percent-online-sales-growth-next-year.html","title":{"rendered":"Wal-Mart sees 40 percent online sales growth next year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wal-Mart sees 40 percent online sales growth next year<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Wal-Mart Stores Inc (WMT.N) on Tuesday forecast a 40 percent rise in U.S. online sales next year as it ramps up competition with Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O), boosting shares of world\u2019s biggest brick-and-mortar retailer to the highest in more than two years.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wal-Mart also forecast overall net sales would rise by at least 3 percent in the year ending January 2019, and said it would buy back $20 billion of its shares over the next two years.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wal-Mart shares rose 4.5 percent to close at $84.13, the top driver of gains in the Dow Jones Industrial Average .DJI and S&P 500 index .SPX.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe are going to lean into places like technology, e-commerce, international stores,\u201d Wal-Mart Chief Financial Officer Brett Biggs said at the Bentonville, Arkansas company\u2019s annual investor meeting which was webcast.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wal-Mart, which is battling Amazon for market share, has been investing in its online business and letting customers pick up online orders at its 4,700-plus stores.<\/span><\/p>\n

The company has already started offering free two-day shipping and said on Tuesday it planned to roughly double the locations for shipping online grocery orders. On Monday, it said it would speed up the process for in-store returns of items bought on its website.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wal-Mart, which expects online sales to hit about $11.5 billion for the fiscal year ending January 2018, did not break out U.S. e-commerce sales last year. It reported growth of about 62 percent for the first half of fiscal 2018, up from 12 percent in the year-ago period.<\/span><\/p>\n

With a steady rise in online shopping, Wal-Mart\u2019s e-commerce sales growth has been outstripping brick-and-mortar, leading the company to slash new store openings.<\/span><\/p>\n

The company plans to open fewer than 15 supercenters and less than 10 neighborhood markets in the United States in fiscal 2019, it said in a statement on Tuesday. That is half the stores it intends to open in fiscal 2018.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDigital has been a recent highlight for WMT and it expects this momentum to carry into FY \u201819,\u201d UBS said in a note. \u201cFaster growth in (e-commerce) should lead to earnings pressure though, as this operation is likely still several years away from profitability.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In August, Wal-Mart warned that current-quarter profit could miss market estimates as margins are hurt by price-cutting and heavy spending on e-commerce.<\/span><\/p>\n

The company on Tuesday estimated capital expenditures of about $11 billion for fiscal 2018 and 2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

Grocery competition has increased since Amazon bought Whole Foods and started to cut prices at the upmarket grocer in August.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wal-Mart forecast fiscal 2019 profit would increase about 5 percent over its expected adjusted earnings of $4.30 to $4.40 per share for the year ending January 2018.<\/span><\/p>\n

The new buyback replaces the existing $20 billion program announced in October 2015. In the seven quarters since, Wal-Mart had bought back $15.10 billion worth of shares.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source: http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-walmart-outlook\/wal-mart-sees-40-percent-online-sales-growth-next-year-shares-rise-idUSKBN1CF1E7<\/span><\/p>\n

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