By Uday Sampath Kumar and Siddharth Cavale
NEW YORK/BENGALURU (Reuters) – Walmart lowered its profit forecast for its fiscal year on Tuesday, signaling a bigger hit to margins due to a general increase in costs from fuel to labor.
The company has done better than most rivals at maintaining inventory levels because of its scale and bargaining power with suppliers, but costs have skyrocketed as the retailer accelerated shipments and chartered cargo ships to place the products on the shelves.
Net income attributable to the company fell nearly 25% to $2.05 billion in the first quarter ended April 30.
Walmart expects fiscal year 2023 earnings per share (February 2022 to January 2023) to decline about 1%, compared with its previous estimate of an increase of about 5% to 6%.
Walmart’s total first-quarter revenue rose 2.4% to $141.57 billion, beating analysts’ average estimate of $138.94 billion, according to Refinitiv’s IBES data.
(By Uday Sampath and Siddharth Cavale)
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