Wal-Mart de Mexico Net Profit Rises on Higher Sales, Lower Costs

By Anthony Harrup 

MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's biggest retailer, Wal-Mart de Mexico SAB, said Thursday that its net profit increased 15% in the second quarter as higher sales combined with lower costs and expenses.

Walmex, as the unit of Arkansas-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is known, made net profit on continuing operations of 6.75 billion Mexican pesos ($380 million) in the three months through June, compared with 5.87 billion pesos in the year-earlier period.

The company also registered a 7 billion-peso gain in the quarter from the sale of its Suburbia clothing stores.

Sales rose 9.1% to 135.72 billion pesos, while earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization -- a measure of operating cash flow -- grew 13% to 12.47 billion pesos. Same-store sales rose 7.2% in Mexico and 6.9% in Central America.

Walmex said both cost of sales and general expenses declined as a percentage of revenue.

The results were in line with the expectations of analysts polled by The Wall Street Journal.

Growth in Mexican retail, while slower than in 2016, has been resilient to this year's bump in inflation and a slowdown in consumer credit. More than 800,000 formal private sector jobs were created in the past year, and unemployment is at an 11-year low, although wage increases have been below the current 6.3% inflation rate.

Retail association Antad, whose members include Walmex, reported 5.7% same-store sales growth in the second quarter, with total sales up 8.9%.

Write to Anthony Harrup at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 27, 2017 17:23 ET (21:23 GMT)

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