BENTONVILLE, ARK. — Grocery remained a catalyst for Walmart in the fiscal 2025 third quarter as the retail giant beat Wall Street’s high-end earnings projection and generated across-the-board sales growth heading into the holiday season.

“Our associates delivered another strong quarter, continuing our momentum,” Doug McMillon, president and chief executive officer, told analysts in a conference call on third-quarter results. “They’re working hard to save our customers and members time and money while simultaneously transforming our business for the future.”

McMillon said Walmart’s investments in omnichannel, technology, infrastructure and alternative income streams like retail media are paying off at both the bottom and top lines.

“Globally, we drove strong growth in e-commerce, up 27%, advertising grew 28% and membership income was up 22%,” he said. “This helped us grow profits faster than sales, even as we work to help lower prices and invest in our associates. The rapid growth from these newer businesses is helping us strengthen our business model.”

Performance was strong at Walmart US, Sam’s Club and Walmart International, with the US segments seeing robust comparable sales, McMillon said.

“All three segments of our business performed well,” he said. “Transaction counts and unit volumes were positive across each segment, and we continue to gain market share in the US, both in grocery and general merchandise.”

For the fiscal 2025 third quarter ended Oct. 31, Walmart’s consolidated net income totaled $4.58 billion, equal to 57¢ per share on the common stock, compared with $453 million, or 6¢ per share, a year ago. The fiscal 2024 quarter’s results reflected the impact of decreases in the underlying stock prices of Walmart’s investments in JD.com and Symbotic. On an adjusted basis, third-quarter 2025 diluted net earnings per share was 58¢, up from 51¢ a year earlier. Analysts, on average, had projected adjusted EPS of 53¢, with a high estimate of 56¢.

“It’s been my experience that our customers and members want four things from us,” McMillon said. “They want low prices. They want a really broad assortment of products and services. They want to have a great experience, and that includes convenience and saving them time. And they want to do business with somebody they trust. And in this business, you get what you earn. So we are working hard today to make sure that, tomorrow, we’re continuing to have quarters like the one that we had this quarter.”

At the top line, Walmart saw third-quarter revenue climb 5.5% to $169.59 billion from $160.8 billion in the prior-year period, with the gain at 6.2% in constant currency. Operating income rose 8.2% to $6.71 billion and was up 9.8% in constant currency.

“This was clearly a strong quarter, and the changes we’ve been working on for years are continuing to bear fruit,” McMillon said. “We’re well-positioned to serve people how they want to be served, whether that’s coming into a store, picking up an order or having it delivered. Our team has changed, developed new capabilities and learned how to work in new ways. We build new tech more effectively than we used to, and we’re doing it with more speed. This is a more customer- and member-centric organization.”

Net sales at the core Walmart US business advanced 5% year over year to $114.88 billion. Comparable sales excluding fuel grew 5.3%, topping the 4.9% increase a year earlier. Customer transactions rose 3.1%, short of the 3.4% year-ago increase, while the 2.1% uptick in average ticket size bested the prior-year increase of 1.5%. Walmart said e-commerce contributed 290 basis points to US comp sales, in line with 300 basis points a year earlier. US operating income surged 9.1% to $5.44 billion.

“Households earning more than $100,000 made up 75% of our share gains,” McMillon said. “In the US, in-store volumes grew, curbside pickup grew faster and delivery sales grew even faster than that. Becoming more convenient for our customers and members is helping drive our growth. We had almost no like-for-like inflation in the US this quarter.

“It was nice to see general merchandise grow (by) low single digits in the US even as prices are deflated by over 4%. We currently have about 6,000 (price) Rollbacks in Walmart US across all categories. We’re feeling some margin pressure from growth in GLP-1 (weight-loss) drugs. So we’re pleased to see general merchandise sales be positive.”

Grocery comp sales increased by mid-single digits in the third quarter, with gains in transactions, units and market share, Walmart said. The company said the grocery sales strength was broad-based, led by pantry products.

“Food categories were especially strong this quarter, with unit volumes growing by the highest level in four years,” said John Rainey, chief financial officer. “We also generated mid-teens growth in health and wellness, due largely to branded pharmacy scripts, including GLP-1. GLP-1 sales contributed about 1 (percentage) point to the segment comp while continuing to create mix pressures in gross profit.”

In grocery, like-for-like inflation in the quarter was 100 basis points, many driven by eggs, according to Walmart. Private label penetration edged up by 80 basis points. Of the 6,000 Rollbacks during the period, about 3,000 were in grocery, and over the past year the company has converted nearly 2,000 Rollbacks across the Walmart US assortment to long-term price reductions.

“US customers remain resilient, with behaviors largely consistent over the past four to six quarters,” Rainey said. “They continue to seek value to maximize their budgets while also choosing convenient options to save time. Our efforts to bring down pricing have helped, as total like-for-like inflation has remained close to flat for the past four quarters, with Q3 general merchandise and consumables deflationary and food inflationary in the low single digits.”

Third-quarter sales at Sam’s Club increased 3.9% to $22.85 billion, while comparable sales excluding fuel climbed 7% in the quarter, compared with a 3.8% gain a year earlier. Transactions at the wholesale club chain saw transactions grow 6.4% versus a 4% gain a year ago. The average ticket inched up 0.5% following a 0.2% dip in the year-ago period. E-commerce contributed 290 basis points to comp sales growth, up from 170 basis points a year earlier. Operating profit increased 6.9% to $634 million.

Walmart International net sales were up 8% in the quarter to $30.28 billion, with growth at 12.4% in constant currency. Operating income rose 8.2% to $1.2 billion and was up 9.8% in constant currency.

Worldwide, Walmart’s e-commerce sales jumped 27% for the third quarter, reflecting gains of 22% for Walmart US, 26% for Sam’s Club and 43% for Walmart International.

“Growth in customer transactions and units across store and e-commerce remains strong,” Rainey said. “Store-fulfilled delivery increased nearly 50% and surpassed a $2.5 billion monthly run rate. We’ve now had 12 consecutive months of deliveries above $2 billion.”

The strong quarter led Walmart to raise its guidance for fiscal 2025. The Bentonville, Ark.-based company now forecasts full-year adjusted EPS of $2.42 to $2.47, up from the previous projection of $2.35 to $2.43. Walmart lifted its top-line outlook above the high end of its earlier estimate, with consolidated net sales growth now pegged at 4.8% to 5.1% versus the prior forecast of 3.75% to 4.75%. Similarly, the growth range for adjusted operating income was raised to between 8.5% and 9.25% from between 6.5% and 8%.