WMMVY Wal Mart de Mexico SAB de CV (QX)

By Anthony Harrup

MEXICO CITY -- Sales growth at Wal-Mart de Mexico SAB, Mexico's largest retailer, saw a modest slowdown in 2018, held back by weakness in Central American operations.

Walmex, a unit of Bentonville, Arkansas-based Walmart Inc., said Tuesday that December sales rose 5.6% to 71.4 billion Mexican pesos ($3.7 billion), while full-year sales were up 7.5% from 2017 at 612.2 billion pesos ($31.6 billion). Sales grew 7.7% in 2017.

Same-store sales in Mexico rose 4.7% in December from the year-earlier month, as 0.5% more customers spent 4.2% more on average per visit. In Central America, same-store sales rose just 1.4%. Full-year sales excluding stores opened in the past year rose 6.7% in Mexico and 2.1% in Central America.

Low unemployment and higher wages in real terms, as well as record remittances from Mexicans working abroad, supported private consumption of goods and services in Mexico, which grew 2.4% in real terms in the first nine months of last year, above the 2.1% expansion in the overall economy.

Walmex ended last year with 2,438 stores in Mexico and 811 in Central America.

December same-stores sales growth in Mexico was below the 5.8% estimate of analysts polled by Infosel.

Citibanamex had forecast 5.7% growth in December same-store sales for Mexico, adding, "the market will consider the lackluster growth to be negative."

Walmex plans to report fourth-quarter financial results on Feb. 13. Its shares rose 1.4% on the Mexican stock exchange ahead of the sales report.

Write to Anthony Harrup at (anthony.harrup@wsj.com)

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 08, 2019 17:07 ET (22:07 GMT)

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