Bentonville, AK, Feb. 18--Wal-Mart Stores' fourth quarter earnings were up 16.3%, beating analysts expectations. In the quarter the company posted earnings of $2.53 billion, or $0.57 per share, compared to $2.19 billion, or $0.49 per share, a year earlier. Analysts had forecast earnings of $0.56 per share.
Sales for the quarter were $71.07 billion, up 10.7% from $64.2 billion a year earlier.
Same store sales were up 2.7% in the quarter. Wal-Mart discount stores, Supercenters and Neighborhood Markets saw a 3.3% same store increase, while the Sam's Club wholesale division fell 0.3% for the quarter in same store sales.
For the year, Wal-Mart earned $8.04 billion, or $1.81 per share, up from $6.67 billion, or $1.49 a share, a year earlier.
Sales for the year were up 12.3% to $244.52 billion from $217.80 billion a year earlier. Same-store sales were up 5.1%, with the Wal-Mart division seeing a 5.7% increase and a rise of 2.3% at Sam's Clubs.
Wal-Mart has 2,875 stores within its Wal-Mart division, 525 Sam's Clubs and 1,288 international units. Also, the company owns a 34 percent interest in Seiyu in Japan, with options to buy 66.7% of the company, which has more than 400 stores.
