Canada remains a bright spot for Walmart Stores

Walmart Canada just completed its 12^th consecutive quarter of positive sales growth, and remains a bright spot for the world’s largest retailer.

The results were revealed late last week in the company’s 2018 Q1 earnings report. Walmart reported comparable sales growth of 1.4% in the U.S. as well as positive results in seven of 11 international markets on total revenue of $117.5 billion, up from $115.9 billion the year before.

In Canada, net sales were up 2.7% while comparable stores sales were up 1.5%. The company said it was gaining market share in food, consumables, and health and wellness.

Walmart executives emphasized the company’s strong performance on e-commerce for the quarter. Sales at Walmart.com rose 63%, compared to growth of just 29% in the previous quarter.

“We like the traction and we are working hard to make even more improvements,” said Doug McMillon, Walmart Stores president and CEO.

Much of the growth was organic and the company singled out new free-delivery offerings (for orders of $35 or more) and a pickup discount program—order online and get a discount for picking up at a store—as key contributors to the strong e-commerce results.

“Walmart.com now has 50 million first and third party items to choose from compared to 10 million at this time last year—so our assortment continues to ramp,” said McMillon.

Whereas Canadian grocery retailers continue to struggle with deflationary pressures, McMillon cited a lack of market deflation in the U.S. for a strong quarter for Walmart’s grocery sales. “he grocery business continued to improve with food categories delivering the strongest quarterly comp sales performance in more than three years,” he said.

Online grocery sales were also performing well, he said.

“e’re on track to scale the offering to more stores this year in several countries, including the U.S.” Online grocery is available in nearly 670 locations in the U.S. now. Walmart Canada has also been expanding its grocery delivery program.