6/26

According to the company, for the fourth quarter of 2016 Walmart:

Total revenue was $130.9 billion, an increase of 1.0%. Excluding currency , total revenue was $133.6 billion, an increase of 3.0%. Walmart U.S. comp sales increased 1.8%, driven by a traffic increase of 1.4%. Neighborhood Market comps increased approximately 5.3%. E-commerce growth at Walmart U.S. was strong as sales and GMV increased 29.0% and 36.1%, respectively, including Jet.com and online grocery.

Growth is good.  Starting with something as huge and mature as Walmart, one percent growth is quite good.  A double-digit GMV increase -- Gross Merchandise Value -- is very good.  GMV usually does not include discounts, costs involved and returns of products.  So.. don't read "net sales".

I want to see more detail.  But this seems to reinforce other outputs that suggest the Jet.com purchase may be paying off.

UPDATE:  After looking at more detail, what stands out is an 8 percent drop in profits compared to the same quarter one year earlier.  Several commentators and news reports characterize this as "investing" in price differentiation.  Investors seemed to agree rewarding the company with a 3 percent surge in the stock price.

A February 27 report by Reuters gives more detail on how Walmart is "investing in price":

Spot checks by Reuters on a basket of grocery items sold by competing Aldi and Wal-Mart stores in five Iowa and Illinois cities showed Wal-Mart's bid to lower prices is already taking hold. Wal-Mart consistently offered lower prices versus Aldi, an improvement over recent analyst estimates that Wal-Mart's prices have been as much as 20 percent higher than Aldi on many grocery staples... 

The big box retailer also held meetings last week in Bentonville, Arkansas with food and consumer products vendors, including Procter & Gamble (PG.N), Unilever PLC (ULVR.L), Conagra Brands Inc (CAG.N), and demanded they reduce the cost they charge the retailer by 15 percent, sources said. 

Wal-Mart also said it expects suppliers to help the company beat rivals on head-to-head pricing 80 percent of the time, these vendor sources said. The wide-ranging meeting with suppliers - where Wal-Mart discussed other topics - was also attended by Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) and Kraft Heinz Co (KHC.O), among others, sources told Reuters. The consumer goods companies did not respond to Reuters requests seeking comment. 

These Wal-Mart moves signal a new front in the price war for U.S. shoppers, as the pioneer of everyday low pricing seeks to regain its competitive pricing advantage in traditional retailing.

 Optimizing volume-with-price can shave profit-margins, but preserves market-share and net revenues.