BENTONVILLE, ARK. — Walmart issued cautious guidance for its current fiscal year despite strong fiscal 2025 results and executives’ confidence in navigating tariffs and macro-economic uncertainty while meeting the needs of “resilient” consumers.

“We’ve been operating in a highly dynamic backdrop for several years, and we expect this year to be no different,” John Rainey, chief financial officer, told analysts in a conference call on Feb. 20. “Our outlook assumes a relatively stable macro-economic environment but acknowledges that there are still uncertainties related to consumer behavior and global economic and geopolitical conditions. As a result, we’ve taken a similar approach to our initial guidance view for the year as we have in the past couple of years, balancing known risk with what we can control.”

For fiscal 2026, Walmart projects adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of $2.50 to $2.60, reflecting a 5¢-per-share headwind from foreign exchange. The forecast came in below Wall Street’s low-end estimate of $2.62 per share. Likewise, Walmart pegs fiscal 2026 net sales growth at 3% to 4%, slightly lower than analysts’ estimate of just over 4%. The retail giant’s sales forecast includes a 20-basis-point headwind from lapping a leap year and a 20-basis-point tailwind from its acquisition of Vizio Holding Corp.

Walmart’s conservative guidance pulled its stock price down roughly 6% to around $97.95 per share as of late afternoon trading on Feb. 20.

Rainey noted that Walmart “outperformed on virtually every operational and financial metric” in the fiscal 2025 fourth quarter and feels the company is “performing exceptionally well.”

“We’re one month into the year, so I think it’s prudent to have an outlook that is somewhat measured,” he said. “We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. There is certainly some unpredictability in any environment that we have, but we feel really good about our ability to navigate that. We feel really good about our relevance with customers, and we feel really good about how our business model is changing to inflect our profits upward.”

Doug McMillon, president and chief executive officer, added in the call, “When you take that noise out of the guidance, you can see that we’re stepping things up a bit. I think that reflects our confidence. And to be in the position we’re in right now, with this momentum on the top line and the bottom line and inventory levels being so healthy, we feel like we’re in a great spot to start the year.”

Watchful on tariffs

In response to an analyst question on the Trump administration’s tariffs, McMillon explained that Walmart already has shown its agility in handling tariff scenarios. So far, Trump has ordered tariffs on China, Mexico and Canada (the latter two pending trade talks) and signaled upcoming tariffs on select industries and possibly on Europe.

“Tariffs are something we’ve managed for many years, and we’ll just continue to manage that,” McMillon said. “We’ve got a great team; we know how to do that. We can’t predict what will happen in the future, but we can manage it really well. And we’re wired to try and save people money, so that’ll be our ultimate goal.”

Walmart currently doesn’t have “any explicit assumption in our guidance around tariffs,” Rainey said.

“We feel like we’ll be able to navigate that,” he said. “Will it turn out differently than maybe what we expect today? Perhaps, and we feel good about our ability to do that, though. With respect to the guidance, look, similar to the last couple of years, very consistently, we have to acknowledge that we are in an uncertain time. And we don’t want to get out over our skis here; there’s a lot of the year to play out. Again, we feel good about our ability to navigate the environment, whether it’s tariffs or other macro uncertainty.”

Strong growth at bottom and top lines

For the 2025 fiscal year ended Jan. 31, Walmart’s consolidated net income totaled $19.43 billion, equal to $2.41 per share on the common stock, compared with $15.51 billion, or $1.91 per share, a year ago. On an adjusted basis, full-year diluted net earnings per share were $2.51, up from $2.22 a year earlier. Analysts, on average, had forecast adjusted EPS of $2.48.

Fourth-quarter net income came in at $5.25 billion, or 65¢ per share, down from $5.49 billion, or 68¢ per share, from the prior-year period. Adjusted EPS for the quarter was 66¢, up from 60¢ a year ago. That topped Wall Street’s consensus projection of 64¢.

“We finished the year with another quarter of strong results,” McMillon told analysts, adding, “We continue to gain market share across countries and income levels.”

Walmart’s fiscal 2025 revenue rose 5.1% to $680.98 billion from $648.13 billion in 2024, with the gain at 5.6% in constant currency. Operating income grew 8.6% to $29.35 billion and was up 9.7% in constant currency.

Fourth-quarter revenue advanced 4.1% to $180.55 billion from $173.39 billion a year earlier and was up 5.3% in constant currency. Walmart noted that results got a lift from 16% growth in global e-commerce sales. Operating income increased 8.3% to $7.86 billion and rose 9.4% in constant currency.

“As we look at our results for the quarter and the year, we’re pleased to see, first, a healthy top line,” McMillon said. “We’re strengthening our ability to serve people how they want to be served in the moment. That’s what’s driving our growth. Our prices are low, and we’re becoming more convenient. Customers are shopping with us more often and buying more items. … Second, we’re growing profit faster than sales, and we have runway to scale our higher-margin businesses like membership, marketplace and advertising.”

Grocery fuels Walmart US

At the core Walmart US business unit, fiscal 2025 net sales increased 4.7% to $462.42 billion. Comparable sales excluding fuel gained 4.5% year over year. Operating profit surged 7.8% to $23.88 billion and was up 8.4% on an adjusted basis.

Walmart US net sales in the fourth quarter totaled $123.52 billion, up 5% from a year ago and aided by 20% e-commerce sales growth. Comparable sales grew 4.6%. Customer transactions rose 2.8%, and the average ticket size was up 1.8%. Walmart said e-commerce contributed 290 basis points to US comp sales. Operating income climbed 7.4% to $6.52 billion.

Walmart cited broad-based sales growth for Walmart US and noted strong holiday season sales despite a shorter shopping season.  The Bentonville-based company singled out grocery as a catalyst, with comparable sales up by mid-single digits and gains in transactions, units and market share. In food, sales were strong across categories — including dairy, fresh meat and produce — amid like-for-like inflation of 170 basis points, mainly due to eggs but also items such as bacon and ground beef. Private label penetration edged up 70 basis points.

“Grocery remains a standout category with mid-single-digit growth, and we saw mid-teens growth in health and wellness due largely to GLP-1 (weight-loss drug) sales, which contributed about a point to the segment comp, consistent with prior quarters,” Rainey said.

“US customers remain resilient, exhibiting behaviors that have been largely consistent over the past year,” he added. “As always, people are looking for value, and they want to save time. Becoming more convenient is helping to drive our growth.”

During fiscal 2025, Walmart US implemented more than 22,000 Rollbacks on pricing, McMillon said. Currently, 5,800 Rollbacks are in US stores, said John Furner, president and CEO of Walmart US.

“That will fluctuate quarter to quarter,” Furner said in the call. “We’ve added about 1,000 in the last few weeks, and we’re prepared for all sorts of environments, whether it’s more promotional or less promotional.”

Walmart’s omnichannel model, too, is becoming a linchpin of its value proposition, McMillon noted.