The nation’s largest retailer beat analysts’ expectations, reporting quarterly profit of $169.3 billion in its latest earnings call, up 4.8 percent year over year. Revenue rose 4.2 percent in the quarter.

While retailers, restaurants and other consumer companies reported that their customer base was strained, Walmart remained healthy and willing to spend. The company raised its forecast for the rest of 2024 to 4% from 3% and now expects sales growth of 3.75% to 4.75% for the year.

Overall consumer spending has slowed in recent weeks amid a broader economic downturn. Retail spending was unchanged for June, according to Census Bureau data. But that was seen as a positive, as analysts had expected a 0.3% decline in June. Walmart was expected to perform better than other retailers. And it did.

“So far, we’re not seeing weaker consumers overall,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillon said during the conference call. “Customers of all income levels are looking for added value, and we have that.”

Walmart leadership expects this trend to continue for the rest of the year. “I know everyone is looking for information that might indicate further weaknesses among our members or customers, but we are not seeing it,” said Walmart Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey.

As the nation’s largest retailer with many suburban stores, Walmart can be a telling indicator of consumer health. Even subtle changes in customers can indicate fundamental shifts in consumer behavior. Sales were strong because Walmart’s lower prices attracted higher-income customers, according to Rainey, who added that higher-income households accounted for “most of the sales gains.”

Walmart appears to be one of the main beneficiaries of recent trends that show consumers, including those with higher incomes, are bargain hunting even on everyday necessities. The sheer number of products Walmart sells alone shows it’s no ordinary retailer. Walmart sells mostly groceries and household goods, everyday consumer goods that are unlikely to be among the first things consumers tighten their belts on, UBS retail analyst Michael Lasser told Yahoo ahead of the earnings call. “So what Walmart has experienced is going to be a little bit different than what other retailers have experienced,” he said.

In an analyst note released last week, Lasser predicted that Walmart would raise its full-year guidance because of this, which it did. “We believe WMT’s (second-quarter) results will demonstrate its ability to outperform overall retail despite a variety of macroeconomic and political factors,” he wrote.

However, some consumers, particularly those on low incomes, are feeling the effects of the tight economy, reporting lower spending and a greater pursuit of value. The CEOs of several major consumer goods companies, including Mondelez, Kraft-Heinz and PepsiCo, which is one of Walmart’s biggest suppliers, said on recent earnings calls that their data showed low-income consumers were even more price-conscious than usual. Low-income consumers “developed many strategies to maintain their budgets until the end of the month,” PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta said on an earnings call earlier this year.

To keep up with these trends, Walmart expects to continue cutting prices for the rest of the year, according to McMillon. Executives were also cautious about forcing higher prices on consumers, especially after many large companies have been accused of price gouging recently. “We do not intend to increase our margin performance by passing that on to our customers and members in the form of higher prices,” Rainey said when discussing the company’s plans for margin improvement.

However, executives were well aware of some mixed signals from the economy that some experts believe could signal a worsening of the situation. During the conference call, Rainey described the economic and geopolitical situation as “more uncertain than normal.” Despite this, he remained optimistic about Walmart’s prospects. “We think we are very well positioned, regardless of whether we are in a more recessionary or more expansionary phase,” Rainey said.