Walmart Just Did This in its Race to Catch up to Amazon

Walmart announced its second quarter earnings on Thursday that topped estimates.

The world’s largest retailer revealed that its online sales jumped 60% in the period with shoppers shopping more at Walart.com, Jet.com, and all of the other sites the company owns such as ModCloth and Moosejaw.

Walmart and Amazon have been going head to head in recent years. Currently Walmart has the largest share in the U.S. grocery business, but who knows how long this will last with Amazon in the process of buying Whole Foods for $13.7 billion.

Greg Foran, who runs Walmart’s U.S. stores has called Amazon is a “strong competitor” and said, “I don’t know what they’re going to do,” Foran said.

In U.S. stores open in the last year, Walmart saw its sales rise 1.8%. This is the 12th straight quarter that the retailer has seen growth in this category.

Earnings for the quarter were $1.08 per share, beating the $1.07 that analysts had expected.
Revenue rose 2% and was $123.36 billion.

Looking ahead, the retailer is expecting earnings between $4.30 and $4.40 for the full year and earnings of 90 cents to 98 cents per share for the third quarter. Wall Street was expecting earnings of $4.36 per share for the full year and third quarter earnings of 97 cents a share.

Disclaimer: We have no position in Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and have not been compensated for this article.