Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club Stores Add to Top Line In July

For the month of July, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. saw sales at its U.S. Wal-Mart stores increase 8.4% to $16.54 billion from $15.26 billion last year. Comparable sales at the stores increased 2.3% for the month on top of a 4.5% increase in the year-ago period. Sales at Sam’s Club rose 5.0% in the month to $3.08 billion on a 3.1% comps increase.

Additional results are as follows:

                              4 Weeks Ended                26 Weeks Ended
                                          Percent                      Percent
                      7-28-2006 7-29-2005 Change   7-28-2006 7-29-2005 Change
    Wal-Mart Stores    $16.543   $15.260    8.4%    $108.382   $99.833   8.6%
    SAM's CLUB           3.078     2.931    5.0%      20.356    19.222   5.9%
    International        6.042     4.620   30.8%      37.854    29.816  27.0%
      Total Company    $25.663   $22.811   12.5%    $166.592  $148.871  11.9%

Comparable sales for the periods ending July 28, 2006, and July 29, 2005, were as follows:


                                4 Weeks Ended             26 Weeks Ended
                            7-28-2006    7-29-2005    7-28-2006    7-29-2005
    Wal-Mart Stores           2.3%         4.5%         2.6%         3.6%
    SAM's CLUB                3.1%         3.7%         3.4%         2.7%
    Total U.S.                2.4%         4.4%         2.7%         3.5%

The 30.8% increase for the four-week period and the 27.0% increase for the 26-week period in International’s net sales include sales from the consolidation of Seiyu and Wal-Mart Central America and the acquisition in Southern Brazil. These entities added 17.6 and 17.1 percentage points to the net sales increases in International for the four-week and 26-week periods, respectively.

“Our customers continued to prioritize spending on food and consumables and they responded early to price breaks for essential back to school supplies,” said Tom Schoewe, executive vice president and chief financial officer of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. “The timing for our back to school promotion was the same as last year and we achieved positive sales results in school supplies for the month, with strengths in crayons, pencils and theme notebooks.

“We were pleased with early customer reaction to fashion basics and room solutions for back to college. In apparel, school uniforms, screened t-shirts, fashion denim and shorts have done well,” Schoewe added.

The estimate for comparable sales in the U.S. for the August four-week period is in the 1 to 3 percent range.

In July, the company opened 32 new locations. This included 25 supercenters, of which 12 were relocations or expansions of existing units, three SAM’s CLUBS, of which two were relocations or expansions of existing clubs, three Wal-Mart Neighborhood Markets and one Wal-Mart discount store.

Comparable sales exclude the impact of fuel sales in the company’s SAM’s CLUB segment. Fuel sales impacted the SAM’s CLUB and total U.S. comparable sales figures for the four-week period ending July 28, 2006, by 0.6 and 0.1 percentage points, respectively, and impacted the 26-week period by 0.8 and 0.1 percentage points, respectively. Including the impact of fuel sales, the SAM’s CLUB and total U.S. comparable sales figures for the four-week period ending July 28, 2006, would have been 3.7% and 2.5%, respectively, and for the 26-week period would have been 4.2% and 2.8%, respectively.