- Walmart (NYSE:WMT) is down more than 6% Tuesday morning after reporting disappointing earnings.
- The world's largest retailer reported adjusted earnings of $1.33 per share where Wall Street expected $1.37.
- Revenue was better-than-expected, but contributions from e-commerce fell by 27 percentage points from last quarter.
Shares of Walmart fell as much as 6% in early trading Tuesday after the retailer posted a 42% drop in fourth quarter earnings that missed Wall Street’s expectations.
However, the word’s largest retailer reported better-than-expected revenues of $136.27 billion, where analysts polled by Bloomberg had anticipated $134.83 billion. On a per share basis, Walmart missed, bringing in an adjusted $1.33 versus the $1.37 that was expected.
Online sales grew 23% in the final quarter of the year, the company said, down from 50% a year ago as it finalizes the integration of its $3.3 billion Jet.com acquisition from 2016.
"Walmart U.S. eCommerce sales growth in the fourth quarter was 23 percent, down from 50 percent in the third quarter," CEO Doug McMillan said in a statement. "The majority of this slowdown was expected as we fully lapped the Jet acquisition as well as creating a healthier long-term foundation for holiday. A smaller portion of the slowdown was unexpected, as we experienced some operational challenges that negatively impacted growth."
Walmart has plenty of room to go in order to catch Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), which last year bought natural grocer Whole Foods for $13.7 billion.
Since Amazon's entrance into the grocery industry, Walmart has teamed up with Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) to explore voice-command shopping much like Amazon’s Alexa-powered Echo devices, as well as cut prices in stores, and rolled out curbside grocery pick up in thousands of locations.
Shares of Walmart have gained 38% in the past year.