Walmart hits $1 trillion in market value for the first time

Walmart’s ascent has been notable as it has managed to tap into a mix of appealing simultaneously to higher-income customers seeking value and convenience and retaining its core base of lower-income shoppers. The stock has surged 468% over the past decade, outpacing the S&P 500’s 264% gain, in part due to that dual strategy, which competitors have struggled to replicate.

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In the past five years, the retailer has expanded its online marketplace to over half a billion items, launched one-hour delivery, created Walmart+ to rival Amazon Prime, and built a $4-billion advertising business that boosted margins.

Critically, Walmart bet early and aggressively on AI, pouring billions into supply-chain automation to stock fresher produce, speed up deliveries and improve inventory forecasting and search, giving the Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer an operational edge that has helped it beat U.S. same-store sales estimates for 15 consecutive quarters, based on estimates compiled by LSEG.

Investor optimism around Walmart’s AI investments has further fueled the stock’s rise as consumers increasingly shift grocery shopping online.

With every $1 in $4 spent on groceries in the U.S. going to Walmart, the retailer finds itself in a sweet spot in a challenging consumer environment where low- and middle-income households face strain from inflation, a cooling job market, tariffs, and uncertainty from the recent U.S. government shutdown, all of which have made the retailer’s every day low price strategy more compelling.

“It really is a remarkable accomplishment. We think of trillion-dollar market caps as being a tech-stock phenomenon, but Walmart is a gritty ‘old-economy’ company,” said Charles Sizemore, a Walmart investor, appreciating the retailer’s investment in technology to cut costs.

The milestone caps a remarkable journey for the retailer, which opened its first store in Rogers, Arkansas, in 1962 and now operates 4,600 locations across the United States. Walmart went public in 1970 at $16.50 on the over-the-counter exchange before listing on the New York Stock Exchange in 1972. The company joined the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 1997 and has been a fixture in the S&P 500 for decades.

Walmart’s stock was trading at $127.10 in afternoon trading. This price reflects multiple stock splits, most recently a 3-for-1 split on February 26, 2024.

AI ARMS RACE

The chain has struck partnerships with OpenAI and Google to embed its online shopping tools directly into their search chatbots. These growing investments in AI are also aimed at closing the gap with Amazon, which had a head start with its chatbot, Rufus, a GenAI-powered assistant that answers shopping queries.

“Walmart is really five stores in one and their boom has come from food retailing. I expect it will approach a $2 trillion market capitalization in the next few years,” said Louis Navellier, chief investment officer at Navellier & Associates, which has held Walmart shares for nearly 2 years.

Reporting by Johann M Cherian and Savyata Mishra in Bengaluru and Siddharth Cavale in New York; Editing by Arun Koyyur, Anil D’Silva, Pooja Desai and Nick Zieminski

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