Walmart achieved an increase in its net income on the back of higher sales in the third quarter of FY23 – without having to raise prices.

The discount department store and hypermarket giant booked attributable net income of $453 million with net sales up 5.3 per cent to $159.44 billion.

Analyst Neil Saunders, MD at GlobalData, expects the positive performance to continue as the multinational retailer is well-prepared to maintain its advantages.

“Pleasingly, the good numbers have not simply been driven by higher prices. Indeed, while Walmart has increased prices to cope with its own elevated costs, it has been more conservative in doing so than some other retailers,” said Saunders.

“This is one of the reasons why its gains have also been a function of acquiring new customers, especially in grocery.”

Saunders added that based on GlobalData MD’s research, 77 per cent of those who have started shopping at Walmart for groceries in the past couple of years intend to continue doing so.

“The bigger challenge is to get more of these newer customers to cross the aisle to buy general merchandise – and there is far more reticence here. However, we are pleased by Walmart’s committed investment to improve its stores.”

For the full year, Walmart forecasts net sales to increase by between 5 per cent and 5.5 per cent from the previous fiscal year.