Walmart Q4 growth: Retail giant leverages Flipkart's Big Billion Days shift

Announcing the results for the fourth quarter of FY25, global retail giant Walmart said the company’s international business benefited from the change in schedule of Flipkart’s Big Billion Days (BBD) sale. On overall performance, the US-based retail giant said that the company performed well in India.

 

“Gross margins in international business benefited from the timing shift of Flipkart’s Big Billion Days event. As our business model evolves, it’s encouraging to see our profitability improve from a diverse set of offerings,” said John David Rainey, chief financial officer and executive vice-president, Walmart Inc, in a post-earnings call.

 

The company follows a February to January financial year.

 

 

However, in terms of year-on-year sales, the timing of the BBD sale resulted in flat growth. “We saw positive traffic and unit growth across markets, with sales strength in general merchandise during festive events. As expected, the timing of Flipkart’s Big Billion Days event negatively affected Y-o-Y sales comparisons. Outside of India, e-commerce sales grew more than 20 per cent across all markets," Rainey added.

 

Last year, Flipkart’s BBD sale was held between September 27 and October 6. However, the sale event usually takes place in October.

 

When it comes to delivery, the company, in its analyst call, said that speed of delivery continues to be important for customers. “In the past 12 months, International delivered over 2.3 billion items same day or next day, which is an increase of over 30 per cent, with about 45 per cent of those items delivered in under three hours," said Rainey.

 

Apart from e-commerce, Walmart also commented on its fintech business in India. Douglas McMillon, president, chief executive officer and director of Walmart Inc, said, “I would like to share the news that PhonePe, our fintech business, is making preparations for an initial public offering (IPO) in India. Our PhonePe team has long aspired to be a public company, and we are excited to be taking these early steps.” The fintech major also announced on Thursday that it has kicked off preparations for a potential listing.

 

Delving into artificial intelligence (AI) integration, McMillon said the company is in a position to leverage fast-moving capabilities. He said, “For developers on our tech team, we now have new coding assistance and completion tools that are helping streamline deployments and deliver code faster with fewer bugs. Last year, these tools helped us save about four million developer hours. This year, we plan to make AI tools available to all developers in North America and India.”