Associated Press
June 6, 2008 1:07 p.m.
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc. executives said Friday that a reinvigorated focus on price has allowed the world's largest retailer to beat out competitors in a challenging economic environment.
"We're winning in the marketplace. You should feel very proud," Eduardo-Castro Wright, president and chief executive of the U.S. division, told cheering stockholders packed into the Bud Walton Arena at the University of Arkansas.
He said at a time when Americans are struggling with higher food and gas prices, "price matters."
Shares, which had been in the doldrums for several years, are now trading close to the top of the company's 52-week range after Wal-Mart began resounding the low-price mantra just as the economy hit the brakes.
Its shares on Friday were recently off $1.02, or 1.7%, at $58.78 as the Dow Jones industrial average fell broadly.
On Thursday, the retailer posted a better-than-expected 3.9% gain in same-store sales for May. The figure for sales at stores open at least a year are considered a key indicator of a retailer's health. The solid increase, boosted in part by the government stimulus checks being mailed out to Americans, followed the company's almost 7% gain in profits for the first quarter.
For the year ended Jan. 31, Wal-Mart, which generated sales of $374.53 billion, reported a 5.8% increase in profits and an 8.6% gain in sales.
Wal-Mart embarked on a multiprong marketing campaign focused on low prices, what it calls more environmentally sound practices, and more affordable health care for customers through a discounted prescription drug program.
Chairman Rob Walton told shareholders that the company remains devoted to the goals set forth by his father, founder Sam Walton, and dismissed critics who say that Wal-Mart has strayed from that vision. He said Wal-Mart continues to offer products at low prices so that people can lead better lives.
When the new Wal-Mart Supercenter opened in Columbia earlier this fall, it provided job opportunities for more than 200 people...
