Walmart’s first-quarter earnings beat expectations, which sent shares in the world’s largest retailer up 9 per cent.

The results bucked a grim trend of disappointing results across the industry this month.

Revenue rose 0.9 per cent to $115.9 billion (€104 billion), while earnings dropped 4.9 per cent to 98 cents a share, 10 cents more than consensus analyst estimates.

Net sales in the US rose 4.3 per cent to $73.3 billion.

The figures suggest that Walmart’s plans in the US to revamp its stores, raise wages and better control its inventory are starting to lure back customers in its core market.

Brett Biggs, chief financial officer of Walmart, said demand had been quite consistent since the beginning of the year, but customers were still acting with some caution.

However, Walmart is still struggling to make returns on its billions of dollars of investment in ecommerce, where it is playing catch-up with Amazon. Sales growth in ecommerce decelerated to 7 per cent from 8 per cent in the fourth quarter and double-digit rises earlier last year. The company admitted this pace was too slow. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited