Walmart shows e‑commerce margin gains

Walmart used its April 23 annual report to press a point from its February earnings: its online business is growing fast without dragging down profits. (corporate.walmart.com) (stock.walmart.com) For the fiscal year ended January 31, 2026, Walmart reported $713.2 billion in revenue, up 4.7%, while adjusted operating income grew 5.4% in constant currency. Global e-commerce sales rose 24% over the same period. (stock.walmart.com 1) (stock.walmart.com 2) The mix of that growth is changing. Walmart said its global advertising business grew 46% to nearly $6.4 billion in fiscal 2026, and membership fee revenue increased 15.5% in the annual report. (stock.walmart.com 1) (stock.walmart.com 2) Those businesses matter because they carry different economics than selling groceries, toys or apparel. Advertising, marketplace fees and memberships add revenue streams around the same customer order instead of relying only on the item in the cart. (stock.walmart.com) (cnbc.com) Walmart also keeps pointing to stores as the engine behind that improvement. In the fourth quarter, the company said global e-commerce growth was led by store-fulfilled pickup and delivery, and Walmart U.S. posted its eighth straight quarter of e-commerce growth above 20%. (corporate.walmart.com) (stock.walmart.com) Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey told CNBC in February that faster delivery from stores was helping Walmart win share, especially with higher-income shoppers. He said those gains were showing up across income groups, with larger gains among upper-income households. (cnbc.com) The annual report adds a governance and capital-allocation layer to that story. Chairman Greg Penner said Walmart is judging spending on artificial intelligence, automation, store expansion and remodels through return on investment and scaling newer businesses at lower marginal cost. (corporate.walmart.com) That leaves Walmart describing itself less as a chain of big-box stores with a website and more as an omnichannel system that uses stores as fulfillment hubs. The company’s annual report put fiscal 2026 e-commerce sales at $150.4 billion. (stock.walmart.com) (digitalcommerce360.com) Investors already heard the first version of this in February, when Walmart beat on holiday-quarter sales but gave a fiscal 2027 earnings outlook below Wall Street expectations. The annual report does not change that guidance, but it does show where Walmart says future margin gains are coming from. (cnbc.com) (stock.walmart.com) The core message from Bentonville is that online growth no longer has to come with a profitability penalty. Walmart is telling shareholders its stores, ads, memberships and delivery network now work together closely enough to change that math. (corporate.walmart.com) (stock.walmart.com)