Walmart’s fiscal 2027 second-quarter earnings beat Wall Street expectations and prompted the retailer to raise its full-year outlook, but the report also exposed a softer U.S. store-sales trend as pharmacy-price deflation weighed on comparable sales. The result leaves Walmart balancing strong growth in e-commerce, advertising and third-party marketplace activity against a domestic consumer environment that appears more selective than headline revenue growth suggests.
Walmart reported total revenue of $187.9 billion for the quarter, up 5.9% from a year earlier and above the $186.77 billion consensus estimate. Adjusted earnings per share reached $0.81, a 19% year-over-year increase that exceeded the $0.74 consensus forecast.
The company raised its full-year net-sales forecast to growth of 4.0% to 5.0%, from a previous range of 3.5% to 4.5%. It also lifted adjusted operating-profit growth guidance to 7.0% to 8.5% and raised its adjusted EPS outlook to $2.80 to $2.87.
The increased EPS range nevertheless remained slightly below the $2.90 consensus estimate at its upper end, suggesting that analysts may still be expecting a stronger earnings contribution from Walmart’s scale, digital operations and higher-margin services over the rest of the year.
U.S. comparable sales slow despite earnings beat
Walmart U.S. comparable sales rose 2.6%, below the 3.5% consensus estimate and the retailer’s slowest comparable-sales growth rate in more than six years. Management said pharmacy-price deflation reduced the figure by roughly 125 basis points, or 1.25 percentage points.
That detail complicates a straightforward read of the weaker number. Lower pharmacy prices can reduce reported comparable sales even when prescription volumes or customer traffic remain stable. Yet the miss against consensus also indicates that the domestic retail business grew more slowly than analysts expected during the period.
Walmart U.S. net sales rose 3.5% to $125.2 billion. The difference between total sales growth and comparable-sales growth reflects the role of new stores and other business changes, while the comparable figure is designed to measure performance at established locations.
The retailer’s results do not by themselves prove that U.S. households are cutting back sharply. They do show that price pressure in pharmacy categories, combined with more restrained growth at mature U.S. stores, is limiting the pace at which Walmart can translate customer activity into reported comparable sales.
Walmart said it began receiving tariff refunds during the quarter and intends to use those funds to lower product prices. If those refunds are substantial enough to affect shelf prices, they could help Walmart preserve its value positioning in categories where consumers are particularly sensitive to small price changes. They could also create another source of reported deflation, making sales growth harder to judge purely through dollar-based metrics.
Digital and membership businesses support margins
The company’s faster-growing businesses continued to outpace its core store operations. Walmart said global e-commerce sales rose 23% year over year, including 24% growth in the United States. These figures point to continued expansion in delivery, pickup, marketplace sales and online product assortment.
Global advertising revenue increased 38%, while Walmart Connect, the company’s U.S. advertising operation, grew 43%. Advertising carries higher margins than traditional retail sales because brands pay for access to Walmart’s online and in-store audience rather than Walmart earning only a markup on physical merchandise.
Walmart’s U.S. marketplace, where third-party merchants sell through the retailer’s online platform, recorded 52% year-over-year growth in third-party sales. Marketplace growth can expand product selection without requiring Walmart to own every item of inventory, while advertising opportunities increase as more sellers and brands compete for visibility.
Those businesses helped drive adjusted operating profit of $9.2 billion, which rose 17.4% on a constant-currency basis, according to Walmart. The company’s adjusted EPS growth therefore came less from a broad acceleration in U.S. comparable-store sales than from a business mix increasingly weighted toward e-commerce, advertising, marketplace services and operational leverage.
GAAP net income attributable to Walmart moved in the opposite direction, falling 9% year over year to $6.37 billion. The contrast with adjusted EPS growth reflects the fact that the two measures use different accounting treatments. Walmart’s report offers a reminder that adjusted earnings can show improving operating performance even as reported net income declines.
International and Sam’s Club add growth
Walmart International recorded net sales of $35.2 billion, up 13% from a year earlier. The international division gave Walmart a faster-growing revenue stream than its U.S. stores during the quarter, although currency movements can influence the reported dollar value of overseas sales.
Sam’s Club U.S. generated $25.7 billion in net sales, an 8.8% increase from a year earlier. Comparable sales excluding fuel rose 4.4%, outpacing Walmart U.S. comparable sales. The membership warehouse chain’s stronger performance gives Walmart an additional channel for value-focused shoppers seeking bulk purchases and lower unit prices.
The divergence between Sam’s Club and Walmart U.S. also suggests that consumer behavior cannot be reduced to a single national spending narrative. Members may be shifting more spending toward bulk formats, while pharmacy price changes are weighing on Walmart’s reported store-comparison numbers.
Macro data may ease rate concerns, but does not create a crypto trade signal
Federal data cited in the report showed total U.S. retail purchases fell 0.6% in July, the steepest monthly decline since May of the previous year. The same material said the Consumer Price Index had eased to a 3.4% annual rate.
A combination of slowing retail demand and moderating inflation would generally reduce pressure for additional monetary tightening. Markets cited in the report were pricing a 27% probability of a September interest-rate increase.
For cryptocurrency markets, lower expectations for rate hikes can improve the backdrop for risk-sensitive assets by reducing concerns that borrowing costs will rise further. That relationship is neither automatic nor immediate: digital assets also react to liquidity conditions, regulatory developments, equity-market performance and network-specific events.
Walmart’s quarter offers a more concrete indicator of the consumer economy than a direct signal for blockchain markets. Its raised full-year outlook shows that large retailers can protect profits through digital services and scale, while the softer U.S. comparable-sales figure and pharmacy deflation show why headline earnings beats should not be treated as evidence of uniformly strong household demand.
Explore how macro shifts and tariffs shape markets—see our latest insights in today-tariff-relief-sparks-rally now.
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