Wal Mart de Mexico SAB de CV

BMV:WALMEX

Earnings Call Analysis

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q3

[Salvador Villasenor, executive]

Good afternoon. I'm Salvador Villasenor in charge of Investor Relations at Walmex. Thank you for joining us to review the results for the third quarter of 2024.

Today with me is Ignacio Caride, President and Chief Executive Officer of Wal-Mart de México y Centroamérica; Dolores Fernández Lobbe, our Chief Merchandising Officer of Mexico; and Paulo Garcia, our Chief Financial Officer.

The date of this webcast is October 23, 2024. Today's webcast is being recorded and will be available at www.walmex.mx. Before we start, let me remind you that the content of this webcast is property of Wal-Mart de México, S.A.B. de C.V.and is intended for the use of the company's shareholders and the investment community. It should not be reproduced in any way.

This webcast may contain certain references concerning Wal-Mart de México, S.A.B. de C.V.'s future performance that should be considered as good faith estimates made by the company. These references only reflect management's expectations and are based upon currently available data. Actual results are always subject to future events, risks and uncertainties which could materially impact the company's actual performance.

Now it is my pleasure to turn the call over to our CEO, Ignacio Caride. Please, Ignacio.

[Ignacio Caride, executive]

Thanks, Salvador, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us for reviewing our third quarter 2024 results. Before going into details about the quarter, let me take the opportunity to express our gratitude to all our associates and reconfirm that our purpose is alive thanks to the work they do every day to serve our customers and help them save money and live better.

Even more through tough times such as the recent Hurricane John and Milton where our associates not only helped by providing the best service at our stores but also with additional efforts to support their communities.

We are positive with the continued momentum we are observing in most parts of our business, although we are seeing a softer consumer environment than we initially anticipated we are encouraged by the resilience of our business and our ability to drive in a diverse macroeconomic conditions as customers and members respond to our investments in key areas of the business. Our low-price value proposition becomes even more relevant for our customers in this environment.

During the quarter, we outpaced ANTAD self-service same-store sales growth by 140 basis points, making it the sixth consecutive quarter with a positive cap which demonstrates the consistency of our results. Our e-comm business continued to grow double digit and faster than the rest of the company. GMV grew 16%, mainly driven by on-demand. There is still potential to untap on this front, helped by the technological efforts we have shared with you before. Our ecosystem continues creating meaningful connections.

During the quarter, Bait reached 15.1 million active users. Walmart Connect grew 27% and we sold more than 600,000 health memberships and our [ latest ] initiative, the digital connection program, also called Walmart Beneficios and Walmart Beneficios, registered more than 28 million contactable customers since its launch in the second quarter.

You heard it correct, 28 million in just 1 quarter. We continue accelerating our growth across all channels as we continue focus in the 3 key factors of simplification, digitalization and automation, I shared with you last time. You will begin to see some initiatives related to these factors.

Recently, we have signed a contract with Symbotic for the construction of 2 greenfield and fully automated distribution centers in Bajío and Tlaxcala. Two weeks ago, we laid the foundation stone of the Bajío DC in the company of Guanajuato's governor. This should deliver additional availability of merchandise for our customers and significant savings in our cost to serve our stores and clubs. I am glad to say that it makes a great difference being able to leverage from our parent company, which is recognized as a top tech innovative player in the industry.

So let's review our performance during the third quarter, starting with total revenues. As usual, please consider that I'm referring to figures on a constant currency basis when I talk about Central America. Consolidated revenue grew 8%. Mexico and Central America delivered a 6.1% and a 4.6% growth, respectively.

Year-to-date, we posted solid consolidated revenue results with a growth of 8% with Mexico posting 8.1% and Central America 5.5%. During the quarter, operating income grew 5.5% while EBITDA had a 6.5% growth versus last year. Paulo will go into financial details later in this presentation.

Now let's review our sales performance in Mexico. During the quarter, same-store sales grew 4.5%, mainly driven by an increase in ticket of 5.5%, while traffic with a softer consumer environment, we commented presented a slight reduction of 1%. Actions are being taken to the accelerate traffic growth. This time, Sam's Club led our same-store sales growth among our formats, underpinned by strong growth in our individual member base. The value we offer to our members through unique merchandise, increase omnichannel's access and better use of data and analytics are being the consistent growth we have achieved in Sam's through time.

As in previous quarters, all our formats outpaced ANTAD self-service same-store sales. In terms of regions, metro-led growth followed by South, Central and North. Regarding merchandise division, general merchandise, driven by home category and Food and Consumables led growth once again while apparel which represent a low single digit of our sales, posted lower growth.

Now let's look at our performance compared to the market. This quarter, we grew ahead of the self-service and clubs market measured by ANTAD by 140 basis points. Year-to-date, during the first 3 quarters of the year, we have grown 170 basis points ahead of the market. We continue focusing on price leadership, price perception and operating with discipline as we see customers continuously rewarding us with their preference.

We will keep innovating, executing and improving with our customers and associates at the center of what we do to continue to align with our purpose while delivering consistent growth versus the market.

Now I will pass the word to Dolores for her to go through the operational highlights, and I will return to speak about Central America stores and clubs opening and ESG.

[Dolores Lobbe, executive]

Thank you, Ignacio. Hello, everyone. It's nice to be back speaking to all of you again. As you know, Win in Discount is our first strategic priority, so we are focused on winning in our stores and clubs since they are the first point of contact with our millions of customers and the entry point to our omni-driven ecosystem.

During this third quarter, there are many initiatives that our associates executed that deserve highlighting. Along the quarter, we had several seasonal events that allow us to help our customers to save money and live better. Our Back-to-School seasonal event is a great example.

In Bodega, we have the notebook with the lowest price in the market at only MXN 9. While in super centers, Pen-and-Gear private brand, we have kept the same iconic price points for 3 years in a row. The latter grew 65%, reaching 25% of office supply sales participation.

We also celebrated Mexican Fiestas Patrias during September with wines and liquor as the main growth driver category with a double-digit growth in Bodega. These pricing efforts are being appreciated. During the quarter, PROFECO recognize us once again for having the lowest price of the basket nationwide in the second quarter of the year.

Walmart Express continues with the improved performance from previous quarters, thanks to the initiatives on customer experience, assortment and fresh such as the in-store premium bakers and butchers. It is important also to let our customers know these efforts.

During the quarter, we launched a new media campaign from Walmart Express through TV, radio and digital channels and movie theaters focusing on this enhancement. There are 2 other actions in our stores that I want to share with you today. The first one is that we had available more than 100 SKUs from the Harry Potter license in various categories such as luggage, pet accessories, clothing, toys, among others. It had amazing results and very good acceptance.

We even saw customers visiting our stores in costumes. The second one was the rollout in 25 large format stores in our Prichos, all under MXN 22, concept within the store sales floor, resulting in a 100% incremental sale in Prichos products and improving traffic by more than 400 basis points.

We continue looking for more efficient ways to do our day-to-day jobs that will make us move even faster through simplification, digitalization and automation, and I want to share 2 examples with you. The first one is the development of our new Minecraft initiative for our Bodega Aurrera Express stores. Replicating the earnings from our operations in Central America that will allow us to be much more agile and flexible in adapting existing commercial spaces, reducing the time to open a new store by 50% and accelerating our expansion in areas of high competitiveness.

We also see opportunities to be more efficient in the cost spend to open these stores. The second one is implementing digital tickets. We will soon begin the rollout of this initiative which will let all customers of the Walmart and Bodega Aurrera Beneficios program to have their purchase tickets at hand digitally evolving the shopping experience while helping the environment at the same time.

Our brands continue to develop and become increasingly relevant. Member's Mark continues to be an important driver for membership renewal as most of the members that buy Member's Mark renew their memberships year-over-year.

During the quarter, Member's Mark sales penetration increased close to 100 basis points versus last year. while our brand's penetration in self-service also increased more than 30 basis points when compared to the prior year. We have seen good results from products launched for seasonal events, which will continue during the following quarter. Our brand's penetration on the whole company increased 50 basis points year-over-year.

Now let's move to our second strategic priority, Lead in Omnichannel and look at our e-commerce performance. During the third quarter, e-commerce GMV grew 16%, driven by on-demand, representing 6.8% of total GMV in Mexico. Regarding our on-demand business, we aim to continue improving service levels for our customers. We finished the rollout in 30 units in 3 states of our 90-minute delivery service, Pronto in Sam's with more than 16,000 orders delivered in less than 2 hours.

Also, we finished the implementation of Glass in 100% of our formats, Walmart Supercenter, Express, Sam's and Bodega. Improving the browsing and shopping experience by redesigning the interface in apps and websites.

Walmart Pass continues to show positive results as it had a 23% growth of active users during the quarter. Regarding extended assortment, our marketplace grew 10% versus Q3 2023, impacted by lower conversion and slower growth in categories with higher relevance within our portfolio such as computers and mobile. We are using CRM to target abandoned cart at improved conversion levels we saw in the quarter.

Walmart Fulfillment Services remains a key factor in offering the best-in-class service levels to our marketplace customers through our logistics network. Compared to the same period last year, the number of SKUs sold and delivered through WFS increased more than 50%. We are continually striving to enhance the customer experience across all processes, including returns.

We have recently introduced 2 new initiatives for Extended Assortment to achieve this goal. The first Omni Returns allows customers to return any 1P product at any Walmart store in just a matter of seconds. The second initiative, Payment Gateway has been rolled out in supercenters. This enables customers who choose to pay in-store that when they ask for a return, their original payment method will be respected instead of being reimbursed in cash. These initiatives emphasize our dedication to continually enhance our customers' experience, aiming to provide a seamless and convenient service.

Let me now move to our third strategic priority, which is to become the ecosystem of choice. Bait continues growing at a fast pace and reached 15.1 million active users almost doubling the number of the same quarter last year. We continue expanding our sales channels to reach and help more customers having access to Bait. As we have shared previously, Bait is already a profitable business even though we continue in the growth phase of the vertical. Our focus is to grow Bait business and increase frequency and average ticket thereby contributing to the whole ecosystem.

On Financial Solutions, this quarter, we disbursed close to 170,000 credits, over 30% more than the same quarter last year. Also during the quarter, thanks to the implementation of Glass in Bodega, we are now able to use Cashi as payment method for the Despensa a tu Casa, our on-demand business in Bodega Aurrera. We continue working to launch Cashi Open Loop. We have encountered some delays related to certain authorizations and tech developments, but it is moving forward as we are already testing it to our friends and family pilot tests.

Walmart Connect delivered a 27% revenue growth versus last year, implementing 26% more campaigns versus third quarter of 2023. During the quarter, we had our Walmart Connect Experience event, making the start of the 2025 advertisers investment planning with over 600 attendees and building the latest advertising vehicle. As previously mentioned, in second quarter '24, we launched Walmart Luminate, which is a collaborative and monetization tool for our suppliers. With shared data and a sharper view of the customer, store and e-commerce. An important part of our top suppliers along with our category teams are now co-creating impactful use cases to serve our customers.

On our Health business, this quarter, we sold more than 600,000 health memberships, more than doubling the number achieved in the same quarter last year and reaching more than 1.6 million memberships year-to-date. We are very proud of how the vertical is evolving since it is certainly aligned with our purpose of helping people save money and live better through low cost and easy access to health services.

Finally, as you remember, last quarter, we launched our digital connection program called Walmart and Bodega Aurrera Beneficios, where customers registered their cellphone number each time they make a physical or digital purchase. For us, it helps to get to know our customers better and create a unique experience and customize our marketing efforts according to their shopping habits while offering significant savings and benefits through our allies.

It's still a bit early to start sharing the findings of the program and the customer knowledge acquired in terms of ecosystem interaction between verticals, frequency, ticket size and others, but I want to share with you that we have seen good initial acceptance of the program with 28 million contactable customers so far.

By contactable customers, we refer to customers that share their mobile numbers with us and made at least one purchase at our Walmart and Bodega formats, allowing us to let them know about our low prices, personalized shopping missions, and ecosystem verticals.

Now I will leave you again with Ignacio so he can comment about Central America, store and club openings and ESG before going through our financial results. It was a pleasure to be here with you today, and I will be glad to answer any questions in our live Q&A tomorrow.

[Ignacio Caride, executive]

Thank you, Dolores. Now moving to Central America. Again, please consider that we are referring to figures on a constant currency basis. In Q3, Central America reported a 3.7% same-store sales growth compared to the same period in 2023, mainly driven by volume growth with all formats and countries reporting growth. We see improved performance in Costa Rica. We continue reinforcing our customer value proposition through price investment and focusing on offering the best experience in our stores, resulting in an all-time high NPS in all of our banners. All this contributed to an improvement of price perception versus the same period of last year. We keep focusing on our omnichannel ambition, accelerating e-comm growth driven by commercial events like Hot Sale in all countries.

Finally, leveraging on Mexico's learnings during the quarter, Walmart Connect increased its income by 90%, while we also launched a pilot to receive remittances in our cashiers in Guatemala and El Salvador.

Now let's talk about new stores and club growth. During the quarter, we opened 39 new units. 32 in Mexico, 5 in Costa Rica and 2 in Guatemala, New store contribution to consolidated sales growth was 1.7% for the quarter. These openings include one Walmart Express in Celaya, Guanajuato with 66% of female talent and 6% of talent with disabilities and one Sam's Club in Cancún, Quintana Roo, which generates 180 direct jobs.

Year-to-date, we have opened 76 new stores with a contribution to consolidated sales growth of 1.7% ahead of the guidance given at the beginning of the year at our Walmex Day. In our continued commitment to ESG practices, I am proud to share some of our recent achievements and initiatives.

We celebrated our 2024 Regenerative Company Summit, where we presented our collective actions benefiting communities and the planet. This event highlighted our dedication to creating a more sustainable future for us.

For the second year in a row, we are happy to be ranked first, in the Top Companies for Women 2024, listed by Expansion. This recognition is a result of our efforts to create an inclusive workplace where everyone can thrive.

As part of our commitment to supporting the communities we serve through Fundacion Walmart, we have planted over 53,000 trees to strengthen the water cycle through our challenge to plan 250,000 trees in 2024, as well as donating half a ton of cleaning products to the families affected by floods in Chalco, Mexico.

I am also very proud to share that in response to Hurricane John, Fundacion Walmart and the Mexican Red Cross provided food for 25,000 people, while Bait and Altan Redes gave affected customers a free 7-day communication package. Collection centers were also established in Mexico City. Furthermore, IKE and Walmart Health offer 24/7 medical assistant and psychological counseling service to all those affected.

Finally, on August 27, 2024, Walmex timely submitted its closing arguments with COFECE. And on September 30, we had an oral hearing with the commissioners of COFECE, which at that point in time had not recused themselves. Also on such date, we submitted a request of recusal for 1 of the 4 remaining COFECE commissioners because of his active participation in the 2020 COFECE economic study that is a basis of the case of the investigative authority of COFECE.

And Walmex made public through its Investor Relations website, all of the relevant documents of this case. Our resolution in this administrative stage is expected during the fourth quarter of 2024. Walmex is confident that these actions have adhered to the applicable legislation and that its participation in the Mexican market has resulted in lower prices for consumers.

Particularly benefiting Mexican families with the lowest income and in remote areas of the country that has not been attended by others, which we will demonstrate in the corresponding instances in which we will be exercising our right and which we will be communicating in the appropriate forums.

At the moment of this recording, we haven't received any notification from COFECE. Before turning it over to Paulo, I would like to wish you all a happy holiday season and we will make sure to serve our customers at our stores and online, helping them find whatever they need during this special season. Thanks again for the interest in our company, and see you all tomorrow in a live Q&A.

[Paulo Garcia, executive]

Thanks, Ignacio, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for your interest in our company. and joining us today to review the results for the third quarter 2024. I will cover Mexico results first and then move to Central America. So let's look at Mexico results. As Ignacio just shared, total revenue grew 6.1%, driven by 4.5% same-store sales growth.

Gross margin expanded by 60 basis points partially offsetting SG&A increase of 110 basis points as a percentage of sales. This reflects the P&L shape change we have been referring for a while with gross margin expected to permanently benefit from income from new businesses.

The accelerated growth and deleverage of SG&A this year is more a consequence of increased labor costs with 20% minimum wage CAGR in the last 4 years and should be reduced in the future. We will go through the gross margin and SG&A breakdown in just a moment. Operating income grew 3.3% and EBITDA margin contracted by 20 basis points to 10.9%.

Let me now expand on gross margin. During the quarter, we had a benefit of 60 basis points driven by contribution from new businesses, which include Walmart Connect, Bait, Financial Services, among others, with 30 basis points improvement.

We also saw 30 basis points increase in our omnichannel margins versus last year, helped by improved margins and mix in general merchandise and Health & Beauty. We shall continue to see the benefits from the verticals of the ecosystem, positively impacting our gross margins. Our priority #1 remains to offer the lowest prices to our customers. Thus, we have put in place actions investing further on prices to capture increased traffic.

Now let's review SG&A. We increased 40 basis points the Run expenses, mainly because of increases in labor costs and utilities, not fully offset by operational efficiencies. As in previous quarters, we continue investing in our strategic growth priorities such as new stores, clubs and DCs, new business and tech investments as well as our associate value proposition. Altogether, these growth investments impacted expenses by 70 basis points.

Now let's review Central America results. Please consider that on this slide, I will refer to figures on a constant currency basis. Total revenue increased 4.6% versus last year, driven by a 3.7% same-store sales growth. Gross margin improved 20 basis points at 24.8% of revenues. We continue to reinforce value proposition through price investments this time more than offset by Walmart Connect acceleration and logistics benefits.

SG&A represented 18.2% of revenues, increasing 10 basis points versus last year, due to gross investments in e-commerce acceleration in new stores and new businesses, partly offset by labor efficiencies.

The above-mentioned results and other income benefits resulted in operating income growing above sales at 7.1% and EBITDA margin of 9.4%, expanding 10 basis points versus last year. At consolidated level, total revenue increased 8%, benefiting from lower peso with new stores contributing 1.7% to total growth, once again, ahead of our guidance provided at our Walmex Day. Gross margin expanded by 50 basis points to 24.9% and SG&A expenses grew 14.6%. Operating income grew 5.5% year-over-year with 8.1% operating income margin.

Finally, EBITDA margin contracted 20 basis points to 10.6%, while consolidated net income decreased 5.1% with a 5.6% net margin, the latter impacted by a tax provision release in CAM last year. In the first 9 months of 2024, we posted a strong set of results with consolidated growth ahead of the market, increasing 8%, whilst reporting an 8.1% EBITDA growth with a 10.6% margin.

And now moving to the balance sheet. Cash decreased 2.9% versus the same period in 2023, we will see resources and uses of the cash in the next slide. Inventories grew 12.6% above sales growth due preparation for seasonal year-end campaigns and lower sales on certain categories during the quarter. We see an opportunity to improve days on hand, structurally improving further our returns.

And finally, accounts payable grew below sales reporting a 7.6% year-over-year growth. In the last 12 months, we generated MXN 90.7 billion in cash we invested MXN 33.8 billion in high return process to continue deploying our strategy in accelerating growth whilst paying MXN 17.4 billion in taxes.

We returned MXN 33.4 billion to our shareholders as dividends in line with our standard practice of delivering any excess cash above our 40% ordinary dividend payout. Our working capital for the period required MXN 7.3 billion due to the increase in inventories mentioned before. All in all, our cash position finished the quarter at MXN 48.5 billion.

To finalize, I would like to emphasize the 3 key messages of the quarter. Number one, we extended our growth momentum versus the market with 140 basis points growth above ANTAD self-service same-store sales. We will continue working to enhance our value proposition to secure customer loyalty.

Number two, we have been increasing investments like new stores, clubs, DCs new businesses, e-commerce or tech, always making sure we deliver best-in-class returns. We will continue investing with the goal of balancing the short and long term to position our company for continued success.

And number three, we continue to grow our ecosystem as we improve customer knowledge, offering improved solutions to our customer needs whilst building margin-accretive businesses.

Thanks again for your interest in our company. We will make ourselves available to answer the questions you may have this time, tomorrow at 3:00 p.m. Mexico City time on our live Q&A. You can reach our IR team if you have any questions concerning how to connect to the call.