:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/GettyImages-2152961287-44e6ae54edc74b43a03e105215e079ce.jpg "What you need to know before Walmart earnings are released")
Key findings
- Walmart reports earnings before the market opens on Thursday, and analysts expect the retailer to be a bright spot in the retail landscape as consumers place an emphasis on value.
- The retail giant’s first-quarter results in May prompted the company to raise its full-year forecast, and analysts at JPMorgan called Walmart “one of the few” retailers able to beat estimates and raise its forecast again last quarter.
- Walmart said in its first-quarter report that most of its market share gains came from higher-income customers.
Walmart (WMT) is scheduled to report earnings on Thursday morning, with analysts expecting a year-over-year increase in sales after the retail giant’s first-quarter results prompted the company to raise its full-year forecast.
Analysts expect revenue to rise about 4% year over year to $168.53 billion, according to estimates from Visible Alpha. Net income is estimated at $5.19 billion, or 65 cents per share, compared with $7.89 billion, or 97 cents per share, a year earlier — or 61 cents per share when excluding the impact of unrealized investment gains, which improved last year’s result.
| Analyst estimates for Q2 2025 | 1st quarter 2025 | 2nd quarter 2024 | |
| revenue | 168.53 billion US dollars | 161.51 billion US dollars | 161.63 billion US dollars |
| Diluted EPS | 65 cents | 63 cents | 97 cents |
| Net income | 5.19 billion US dollars | 5.1 billion US dollars | 7.89 billion US dollars |
Key figure: Market share
In the first-quarter earnings call in May, Walmart executives said the company is gaining market share at multiple income levels. Low-income consumers will continue to be attracted to Walmart because of the company’s emphasis on quality, while higher-income shoppers will be attracted by a combination of price and increasing convenience, company executives said.
The increased share of higher-income customers came at the expense of retail competitors such as Target (TGT), which reported a decline in like-for-like sales compared to the same period last year in its first-quarter report.
Analysts at Bank of America Securities expect Walmart to continue to gain market share across all consumer income brackets in the final quarter thanks to its “strong value proposition” and increasing digitization and automation efforts.
Business Spotlight: Position in Retail
Analysts are bullish on Walmart’s position relative to other retailers because of the company’s dominance as a price-focused retailer, as inflation has caused consumers to cut back on non-essential spending and look for the cheapest option for essentials.
Analysts at JPMorgan called Walmart a “safe stock” in a recent note and said the company is “likely one of the few” retailers that can beat analyst estimates, while raising their earnings forecast for the rest of the year.
Deutsche Bank analysts recently wrote that they expect Walmart’s gains to help the retailer continue to “stand out from the rest of the retail industry with sustained momentum, albeit at a more subdued pace,” despite weaker consumer sentiment.
Walmart shares rose more than 1% on Monday, putting the stock on track to rise more than 30% in 2024, not far from record highs reached earlier this year. They were down about 1% in early trading Tuesday.
