Walmart, in its quarterly earnings call for the September quarter, said its international revenue increased 13% to $26.8 billion in constant-currency terms, primarily driven by double-digit growth in Flipkart and its Mexico business Walmex. In the same quarter last year, Walmart International saw its net sales shrink by almost 25% to $22.3 billion.
Typically, the festive season sale is held in the fourth quarter but this year’s Big Billion Days was took place from September 23-30.
Walmart International’s president and CEO Judith McKenna said in the earnings call that the firm was pleased with Flipkart’s performance this quarter and was able to attract new online shoppers, with more than a billion visits during the sale.
“The Big Billion Days fell into Q3 this year which was in Q4 last year. That created some differences in our results between Q3 and Q4,” said McKenna. “That is an event which is designed to try to bring new customers on board for Flipkart. And it looks to have been successful in doing that again.”
The timing of Flipkart’s sale also helped reduce inventory growth, the company said in its investor presentation.
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According to a report by market research firm Redseer, Flipkart Group, including fashion etailer Myntra and value commerce marketplace Shopsy, maintained its leadership position in the first leg of the festive season sale with a market share of 62%.
ET previously reported that this year’s festive season sales were crucial for etailers as they came on the back of relatively muted sales in the first half of the calendar year. Flipkart spent about $1.1 billion between February and September, filings with Walmart showed.
Flipkart was also a significant contributor to Walmart’s ads business during the quarter, which grew about 40% during the period, the Bentonville-based firm said in a statement. McKenna said in June that India was Walmart’s biggest market in terms of advertising revenue.
ET
reported on October 28 that Flipkart Internet, which runs the online marketplace, saw its ad revenue increase 50% to Rs 2,083 crore in FY22.
Walmart also said during the earnings call on Tuesday that PhonePe hit 10 billion transactions in a month for the first time.
The US retail giant acquired Flipkart for $16 billion in 2018. In July 2021, the Indian etailer raised $3.6 billion in new funding from Walmart, SoftBank, GIC and others at a valuation of $37.6 billion. This was preceded by a $1.2 billion internal round of funding by Walmart in 2020.
