E-commerce major Flipkart’s flagship festive season sale event ‘The Big Billion Days’ has helped retail giant Walmart improve its international business revenue in the fiscal third quarter, Walmart’s Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said at an analyst call on Tuesday.
“Walmart international delivered strong sales results with sales up 13.3 per cent in constant currency despite continued macro headwinds. Ecommerce sales on a constant currency basis were exceptionally strong, up 46 per cent in the quarter. The earlier timing of Flipkart’s Big Billion Days event was also of benefit to sales results,” Rainey said.
Walmart International’s net sales grew $1.7 billion or 7.1 per cent to $25.3 billion in the quarter ended October 31, 2022. The results were negatively affected by $1.5 billion from currency fluctuations, the company said.
“In India, Flipkart had a great quarter with strong customer response to our Big Billion Days sales which moved forward into Q3 this year from Q4 last year. We had over 1 billion visits to our site during the 8-day event and importantly, we saw more than 60 percent of those customers coming from tier 2 and tier 3 cities,” the CFO said.
The company said it continues to see strong growth in Flipkart ads in India which has contributed to its global advertising business which grew over 30 per cent during the quarter.
Quarterly transactions on PhonePe, the digital payments firm owned by Flipkart, crossed 10 billion for the first time.
“PhonePe also continues to perform well with annualised total payment volume or TPV now over $920 billion and reaching a record level of monthly transactions to about $3.6 billion. This was the first time PhonePe had a quarter with more than 10 billion transactions,” Rainey said.
The company’s adjusted earnings for the quarter stood at $1.50 per share, which marks an increase of 3.4 per cent from the same period last year. Gross revenue grew 8.7 per cent from last year to $152.8 billion in the quarter in review.
Walmart’s consolidated gross profit rate declined 89 basis points, primarily due to markdowns and a mix of sales in the US, an inflation-related LIFO charge at Sam’s Club, and the timing of Flipkart’s annual sale event, the company said. Its consolidated operating income stood at $2.7 billion, a decrease of 53.5 per cent, including the legal charges described above. Adjusted operating income grew 3.9 percent to $6 billion.
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