Walmart Q2 2027 earnings: profit beats, sales growth cools, outlook raised
Walmart topped profit and revenue forecasts on booming online and ad sales, and raised its full-year outlook, but slower U.S. store sales growth spooked investors.
| Q2 2027 | Reported | Expected | Surprise |
|---|---|---|---|
| EPS | $0.81 | $0.75 | +8.1% |
| Revenue | $187.94B | $188.79B | -0.5% |
Key takeaways
- Walmart’s adjusted profit of $0.81 per share beat the roughly $0.75 analysts expected, and came in 19% higher than the same quarter last year. Revenue of $187.9 billion was up nearly 6% from a year ago but landed just shy of the roughly $188.8 billion Wall Street had penciled in.
- The bigger swing factor was where the profit came from: Walmart said it has now collected nearly all of the $2.9 billion in tariff refunds it was owed, which gave operating income an outsized boost this quarter. Stripping that one-time benefit out, underlying profit growth was still strong, near the top of the range Walmart had guided to.
- Growth was led by online shopping and advertising rather than in-store traffic: global e-commerce sales jumped 23%, and Walmart’s fast-growing ad business, Walmart Connect, grew 38% to 43% depending on the market. Membership fees from Walmart+ and Sam’s Club also kept climbing.
- U.S. comparable sales — sales at stores and digital channels open at least a year — rose 2.6%, below the roughly 3.5% analysts wanted and the slowest pace of U.S. sales growth in about six years. That miss is why shares fell even as headline profit and revenue beat estimates.
- The margin figures on this page reflect the trailing twelve months, not just this one quarter, so they smooth out the tariff-refund bump; they show Walmart’s profitability has been gradually improving over the past year, helped by higher-margin businesses like advertising and membership growing faster than traditional store sales.
- CEO Doug McMillon said Walmart is holding the line on U.S. prices despite tariff-related cost pressure: “We’re keeping our prices as low as we can for as long as we can,” he told investors, framing low prices as central to the company’s strategy for gaining market share.
- Walmart raised its full-year sales growth forecast to a range of 4% to 5% (from 3.5% to 4.5% previously) and lifted its full-year adjusted profit forecast to $2.80–$2.87 per share, signaling management’s confidence heading into the back half of the year.
- For the current (third) quarter, Walmart guided to more modest sales growth of about 3% to 3.75% and adjusted profit of $0.62 to $0.64 per share — guidance some investors read as cautious given the U.S. sales slowdown seen this quarter.
Q2 2027 in context
| Metric | Jul 2026 | Jul 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $186.1B | $175.8B | +5.9% |
| Net income | $6.4B | $7.0B | -9.4% |
| Free cash flow | $7.5B | $6.5B | +14.7% |
| Diluted EPS | $0.80 | $0.88 | -9.1% |
| Gross margin | 25.4% | 24.5% | +1.0 pts |
| Operating margin | 5.0% | 4.1% | +0.9 pts |
| Net margin | 3.4% | 4.0% | -0.6 pts |
Figures for the quarter ended Jul 2026 and the quarter ended Jul 2025, as reported to the SEC.
How the stock took it
Walmart Inc closed at $114.30 on Aug 19, 2026, the last session before the report, and at $103.70 on Aug 21, 2026, the first session after it — -9.3% across the report.
Closes from the market's daily record. Each figure spans the report date — from the last session that closed before it to the first that closed after — because a company may report before the open or after the close.
Fundamentals
| Metric | Value | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Gross margin | 25.0% | Trailing 12 months |
| Operating margin | 4.2% | Trailing 12 months |
| Net profit margin | 3.1% | Trailing 12 months |
| Pretax margin | 4.2% | Trailing 12 months |
| EPS | $2.84 | Trailing 12 months |
| Revenue growth (YoY) | 5.9% | Trailing 12 months |
| EPS growth (YoY) | 21.8% | Trailing 12 months |
| Return on equity | 23.9% | Trailing 12 months |
Sources: company report · earnings call · financial media coverage