Wal-Mart de México, S.A.B. de C.V. (WALMEX) Q4 FY2025 Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon. I'm Salvador Villasenor, in charge of Investor Relations at Walmex. Thank you for joining us to review the results of the fourth quarter 2025. Today with me is Cristian Barrientos, our President and Chief Executive Officer of Wal-Mart de Mexico y Centroamerica; Paul Lewellen, our new Chief Operating Officer; and Paulo Garcia, our Chief Financial Officer. The date of this webcast is February 18, 2026. Today's webcast is being recorded and will be available at www.walmex.mx. Before we start, let me remind you that the content of this webcast is property of Wal-Mart de Mexico S.A.B de C.V., and is intended for the use of the company's shareholders and the investment community. It should not be reproduced in any way. This webcast may contain certain references concerning Wal-Mart de Mexico S.A.B de C.V.'s future performance that should be considered as good faith estimates made by the company. These references only reflect management's expectations and are based upon currently available data. Actual results are always subject to future events, risks and uncertainties, which could materially impact the company's actual performance. Now I'll turn the webcast over to Cristian. Please, Cristian.

Thank you, Salvador. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. As we close the fourth quarter and the year, I want to begin, as I always do, by thanking our associates across Mexico and Central America. Their commitment, discipline and focus on execution are what allow us to serve our customers every day, how they want, and when they want. We are operating in a macro environment that remains complex with pressure on consumption and cost. In these moments, we focus on what is within our control and execute the fundamentals well. That discipline is what has allowed Walmex to consistently emerge stronger from past cycles, and we believe the same will be true this time. That said, let me be clear. We are not satisfied with these results. They are not good enough. We know we can and must perform better, and that conviction is what is driving the actions we are taking today. We believe that what matters most is execution of our business fundamentals. And as we close the year, we are fully focused on three non-negotiable priorities that guide every decisions we make across the organization: EDLP, product availability and e-commerce acceleration. At the end of the day, our three non-negotiables reflect our purpose in action. When we get everyday low prices right, keep products available and make shopping more convenient through e-commerce, we are directly helping customers save money and live better. We have aligned the teams around these three priorities, and we have already started to see encouraging signs of improvement. We are not waiting for the market to recover. We are acting now with urgency. Let me briefly share some of the execution improvements we are making to our strategy behind each of these priorities. Starting with EDLP, we are refining our pricing strategy to further strengthen our everyday low price philosophy. This means moving toward a more consistent and predictable pricing architecture such as extending the duration of rollbacks and improving price stability across key categories. The objective is to reinforce trust, simplify the shopping experience and ensure customers clearly recognize Walmart as the place where they can rely on low prices every day. EDLP is not only about price at the item level. It is also about price stability and importantly, also about building a better and bigger basket. When customers trust our prices, they consolidate more of their shopping with us. These changes are already being reflected on the price perception improvement of 260 basis points versus last year during the quarter, positioning us to continue delivering strong share gain versus the market. Second, product availability. By connecting store mapping, real-time inventory visibility and on-hand management, we are enabling our team to execute with far greater precision and productivity. We are leveraging Paul's experience from Walmart U.S. by scaling proven automation and operating disciplines. These capabilities add up to our local context, are helping us drive more consistent execution and higher productivity across stores. These efforts, along with better operational execution and tighter coordination across teams are part of the levers behind the 130 basis point improvement in total availability versus last quarter. Importantly, total availability measures whether the product is actually on the shelves when the customer is there, not just somewhere in the store or in the back room. This raises the bar in how we manage and execute availability. Sharp pricing and strong product availability are not independent levers. When prices are right and products are on the shelves, we power both our stores and our digital business, accelerating traffic, conversion and basket size across channels, which takes us to our third non-negotiable, e-commerce acceleration. We have been refining mainly three areas: improving speed by increasing the penetration of same-day deliveries, improving in full by strengthening, execution and expanding reach. Regarding the latter, we are expanding the home delivery coverage of each store, allowing us to reach more households not only by opening new stores, but more importantly, increasing catchment area of our existing store network. To give you an example, during Q4, we already reached San Miguel de Allende and Bahia de Banderas, among other cities with no need of opening new stores there. We look forward to sharing more details on these refinements at our upcoming Walmex Day. Now let me touch briefly in our overall performance, highlighting a few additional results. Paul and Paulo will go deeper into detail afterwards. In Mexico, same-store sales grew 3.3% during the quarter. Importantly, we continued growing same-store sales well ahead of ANTAD by 190 basis points in the fourth quarter, same as for the full year, making it the 12th consecutive year with a positive gap, reflecting the strength of our value proposition. At a consolidated level, total revenues grew 5.5% for the full year and 4.6% in constant currency. While these results came below our initial expectation at the beginning of the year, the underlying performance of the business remains solid as seen in the relative performance versus the market. Despite having grown well above our competitors, we believe we can do even better as we advance on our priorities. Therefore, we expect growth to accelerate in 2026. Physical expansion also continued to support growth. During the year, we opened 186 stores across Mexico and Central America, representing an acceleration versus last year and a record year since 2013. In square meters, this represented an additional 212,000 square meters of sales floor, which is equivalent to approximately 1,000 stores of proximity formats. In the full year 2025, e-commerce GMV grew 17%. While this represents continued progress, we know that this is not yet the level of growth we aspire to over the long term. We are in a transition phase, but the focus now is on accelerating execution and deploying initiatives with short-term and measurable impacts to close the gap in the near term. Initiatives like One Hallway represent a structural change to how customers experience our digital platform. In the U.S., they went through a similar transition where benefits became visible only after an initial adjustment period. From here, we expect gradual improvement in conversion, assortment visibility and customer experience. Our ecosystem continues to reinforce the core retail business. On one hand, Bait reached over 26 million active users. We have seen that these users spend on average 2.5x more than a non-Bait customer, reinforcing our belief that when we deliver clear and relevant value such as affordable connectivity, customers respond with greater engagement, loyalty and trust. As with all the new businesses beyond the numbers, what matters most is how it strengthen the core. Data generated through our beneficiaries program is already being used to enhance pricing design and optimize assortment productivity at item and store level by leveraging advanced analytics and AI-enabled tools such as Scintilla. We're improving the quality of our decisions and delivering better outcomes for our customers. Stepping back, when I look at the year as a whole, what gives me strong confidence is how the organization is responding internally. I'm really satisfied with the way our teams are adapting, sharpening execution and embracing this renewed phase of focus on fundamentals. I feel confident on how we are leveraging proven best practices and automation from other Walmart markets, adapting them to our local context to strengthen execution in our three non-negotiables and raise productivity across the business. Looking ahead, the economic growth should pick up, and we are now confident in the path forward. What gives me confidence is that we know what we have to do. We have clear priorities, but we need to accelerate the speed at which we are moving. This leadership team has a very clear focus, and we are executing with urgency on the levers we know create value. Before I hand it over, I would also like to invite you to join us at our Walmex Day on March 25th. We look forward to seeing many of you there. We will be sharing more details on our growth strategy and introducing the new members of our management team. We are excited to show the significant growth potential that we have ahead of us. With that, I will now leave you with Paul, who will walk you through our operational highlights in more detail. Thank you again for your interest in Walmex, and see you tomorrow at our live Q&A.

Thank you, Cristian, and good afternoon, everyone. I'm honored to step into the role of Chief Operating Officer. I started my Walmart career over 35 years ago as a store associate in the U.S. And throughout my career, I've spent most of my time in operations, leading stores, markets, regions and large-scale retail networks. Today, I'm excited to be working alongside our teams, focused on executing with discipline across more than 3,300 stores in Mexico and on strengthening the fundamentals that serve millions of customers every day. So let's review some of our operational and commercial highlights of the quarter. Regarding growth, Mexico reported a 3.3% same-store sales growth with ticket growing 3.9% and transactions declining 0.5%, similar to the previous quarter. Health and wellness led among Merchandise divisions, followed by food and consumables, while the Northern region continued to be the leading region in terms of growth for another quarter. In Bodega, which was the leading format in growth, our customer value proposition shines brighter in this economic backdrop. We saw household penetration in lower income segments increased more than 300 basis points. At Sam's Club, our teams made important progress improving availability and member experience. In-stock levels improved driven by better safety stock automation, improved forecasting and stronger execution in fresh and perishables. Member experience also improved meaningfully with NPS increasing 1,100 basis points as teams simplified the omnichannel journey and reduced renewal friction. In Walmart Supercenter, we made progress in upgrading the in-store experience. The first phase of the Supercenter image refresh was executed in line with our annual plan. And in parallel, we expanded the rollout of our Store of the Future concept. Store of the Future focuses on optimizing space such as expanding sales floor of some of the fastest-growing categories like pets, integrating new concepts and improving store flow to increase traffic, productivity per square meter and customer engagement. While still in the pilot phase, early results reinforced our confidence that Store of the Future can strengthen Walmart Supercenter competitiveness in grocery and support profitable long-term growth. Let me also share that we returned to Buen Fin campaign after 6 years. While the event came in below our initial expectations, customer engagement remains strong. We delivered more than 76 million transactions across stores and clubs and over 180 million visits in e-commerce. And November 17 marked the highest sales day in Walmex's history. These results give us clear learnings as we continue refining our execution and assortment for future events. Now let me go through our three non-negotiables to see how we are advancing in each of them. First, everyday low prices. In addition to what Cristian already shared with you related to strengthening our everyday low price philosophy, we are refining our assortment to strengthen our customer value proposition, leveraging Scintilla and deep customer insights. Initial progress includes rationalization of assortment in formats such as Mi Bodega and Bodega Aurrera Express. In the latter, we are reducing the number of SKUs by more than 30%. In parallel, we are enhancing modular and assortment processes and best practices from Walmart U.S. and Canada. The international leverage allows us to scale proven capabilities, increase consistencies across formats and accelerate learning by adopting what already works well in other markets. Regarding private brands, penetration continues increasing. During the fourth quarter, we launched and relaunched more than 200 items across categories, combining value-driven innovation, seasonal relevance and global leverage to strengthen our overall proposition. These initiatives, together with clear communication and the discipline of our teams are behind the price perception increase of 260 basis points versus last year. This was the biggest improvement in many quarters, and it is a critical indicator of how customers experience our value proposition. Additionally, delivering everyday low prices is only sustainable if it is supported by everyday low-cost execution across the business. We are transforming our cost structures through strategic productivity initiatives, enabled by technology like digital shelf labels, smart receiving, which is receiving process reengineering and automation of administrative activities like cash management and store back office. Now turning to availability. We are moving from isolated improvements to a much more integrated execution model, leveraging Walmart U.S. best practices. We are strengthening execution by connecting three critical elements into one simplified process. First, store mapping to clearly define how space is used in each store, so inventory can be placed, moved and replenished efficiently. Second, real-time inventory visibility to know exactly where product is whether it's on the sales floor or in the back room. And third, on-hand management, so data is translated into clear actionable tasks for our associates to keep shelves stocked and inventory accurate. Associates now have clearer direction on what to replenish and when aisles are better stocked across the store and inventory accuracy continues to improve. This is already having direct benefits in our days on hand, which improved 1.7 days versus previous year, while improving overall availability. This also directly benefits our omnichannel operations as pickers and last mile partners can locate products more easily and follow automated routes, reducing friction and improving service levels. This model is already delivering results in our flagship stores. It will be fully deployed in food and consumables by the end of the first half of the year and will begin rolling out to hardlines in the second half. These kinds of efforts as well as general improved execution of the teams are behind total availability improvement of 130 basis points versus the third quarter on top of the improvement we had already delivered versus the second quarter. Total availability is an internal metric we are using that is more rigorous than the traditional in-stock or OSCA measurements that we've used in the past, which we believe raises the bar on product availability tracking as it measures whether the product is actually on the shelf when the customer is there. Now turning to e-commerce. In the fourth quarter, e-commerce GMV grew 13.3% and for the full year, GMV grew 17.1%. On-demand continued to lead growth, increasing 19.1% in the quarter and 22.1% for the full year, while marketplace GMV grew 15.3% in the quarter and 12.7% for the year. As a result, e-commerce penetration reached 9.1% of total GMV in the fourth quarter and 8.3% for the full year. We advanced the integration of our digital platforms through One Hallway. At the same time, we continue to scale our store-based fulfillment model, improving delivery speed as well as service levels with important improvements in on time, in full and NPS across all formats. The expansion of our crowdsourcing model is supporting greater adoption of same-day and rapid delivery options, where 10% of orders in Sam's were already delivered in less than 90 minutes. While in Supercenter and Express, we delivered 20% of the orders in less than 90 minutes and more than 60% of the orders in the same day. This represents an improvement of more than 500 basis points versus prior year. Also Sam's Club delivered solid growth, driven primarily by higher engagement from individual members with orders increasing close to 25% versus last year. Regarding our reach, we are actively extending our delivery radius of each store, allowing us to serve more households without necessarily opening new physical locations. This is how we are better leveraging our existing store network, improving asset productivity and expanding convenience for our customers. We look forward to sharing more detail on these strategic refinements at our upcoming Walmex Day. At the same time, we are building a healthier marketplace. This means expanding into more categories and sellers with stronger margin profiles and leveraging cross-border opportunities that meet our return thresholds. E-commerce growth this quarter was below our long-term ambition. As we move through this global platform implementation, we are seeing a natural learning curve as customers go through an adaptation process. While some short-term friction is expected in any transformation of this scale, we are encouraged by early stability and expect performance to improve gradually as customer behavior normalizes, familiarity with the platform increases and a marketplace scale becomes more relevant. Let me now turn to our ecosystem new businesses. Bait generated revenues of MXN 3.5 billion in the fourth quarter, while active users reached 26.4 million, up 44% year-over-year. Importantly, Bait's integration with our stores continued to deepen with more than 2.2 million customers receiving free mobile data through purchases in Walmart stores through December alone, helping increase overall average ticket. For the full year, Bait generated MXN 11.5 billion in revenue, growing 60% year-over-year. Walmart Connect increased revenues by 5% in the quarter and reached 17% growth for the full year, reaching MXN 4.4 billion in Mexico, significantly ahead of advertising growth in the market, reflecting the strength of retail media advertising. We have seen some pressure on advertising budgets from suppliers in the last two quarters, given the current macro environment, which has moderated growth in the short term. That said, we expect advertising investment to recover as conditions improve, supporting long-term growth in 2026. Beneficios has become a powerful tool to strengthen execution across business. As we connect with 49.6 million active users by the end of the fourth quarter, we are now able to identify more than 70% of our omnichannel sales, fundamentally shifting from anonymous transactions to more personalized and deeper relationships with our customers and members. Those insights support better decisions across merchandising, supply chain and store operations, allowing us to respond faster to shifts in customer needs and operate with greater discipline. Before handing it over to Paulo, I want to share a personal reflection. Having recently arrived in Mexico, I've spent time in stores, clubs and operations, working closely with our teams. What stands out to me is the commitment, pride and speed with which associates are responding to a more challenging environment. There is a strong sense of ownership and a clear focus on fundamentals that gives me a lot of confidence. I've been truly impressed by the talent and resilience of our teams, and I'm excited about what we can continue building together while leveraging global platforms and best practices from other Walmart markets. With that, I'll turn the call over to Paulo, who will walk you through our financial results. Thank you once again for joining us today.

Thanks, Paul, and good afternoon, everyone. Let me share with you our consolidated financial results as well as the breakdown of Mexico and Central America separately. Starting with the consolidated results. During the fourth quarter, total revenues grew 3% on a reported basis and 4.5% in constant currency. For the full year, consolidated revenues increased 5.5% reported and 4.6% excluding FX. While we are not satisfied with the results, the underlying performance of the business remained solid, supported by continued share gains and disciplined execution across the core. At the same time, softer-than-expected consumption impacted on overall growth. I will comment more on consolidated results in a moment. Turning to Mexico. Total revenues grew 4.9%, driven by 3.3% same-store sales growth. Gross margin had a 40 basis point expansion versus last year, while SG&A remained flat at 15.6% of sales and growing in line with revenues. We'll see the gross margin and SG&A breakdowns in just a moment. All this led to an EBITDA margin of 10.7%, expanding 50 basis points versus the same quarter of last year. As mentioned by Cristian before, with a 3.3% same-store sales growth, we outpaced ANTAD self-service and clubs same-store sales figures by 190 basis points, leading to a positive gap for the full year of 190 basis points for the 12th consecutive year. Growing ahead of ANTAD remains an important indicator of our ability to gain share, reinforce the long-term relevance of our formats and our ability to serve our customers when they need us the most. Let me now expand on gross margin. We delivered a 40 basis points expansion versus last year, reaching 24.0% of total revenues. This improvement was primarily driven by two factors. First, we saw a 25 basis points benefit from omnichannel commercial margin, reflecting margin benefits, mainly in general merchandise as well as waste reduction in Fresh. Second, new businesses contributed an additional 15 basis points, supported by the growing scale and profitability of these higher-margin streams. Importantly, this margin expansion was achieved while maintaining our price leadership and continue to invest in value for customers, expanding price perception as well as improving inventory levels for another quarter, demonstrating the increasing ability of our ecosystem to support profitability. Now let's review our SG&A. Expenses remained flat year-over-year as a percentage of sales, closing the quarter at 15.6% of total revenues, reflecting a disciplined balance between efficiency and gross investments. On the one hand, run efficiencies contributing 25 basis points benefit driven by productivity initiatives and tighter cost control across the operation. On the other hand, gross investments added 55 basis points, mainly related to new stores, digital capabilities and initiatives to strengthen the customer and associate value propositions. In addition, the quarter included a benefit from a previous year one-off cost in the base which brought SG&A back to flat versus last year. The benefit from this previous year one-off is a non-recurrent, and you can expect a return to high single-digit growth in SG&A versus previous year for the next quarters. Now let's review Central America results for Q4. Please consider that on this slide, I will refer to figures on a constant currency basis. Total revenues increased 2.4% versus last year, again, mainly impacted by Costa Rica. We managed to deliver market share gains for the full year in Central America. However, we lost momentum in the second half of the year. Gross margin expanded 10 basis points compared to last year to 24%. Investments in customer value proposition were more than offset by supply chain benefits and Walmart Connect contribution. SG&A represented 17.6% of revenues, expanding 20 basis points versus last year behind the efficiencies that were not enough to compensate growth and run investments. The aforementioned result in EBITDA margin of 9%, 30 basis points above previous year. Now let's review in more detail sales and operational highlights. In Q4, Central America reported a 0.6% same-store sales growth with Honduras and El Salvador growing the most. Growth was impacted by Costa Rica, which is going through deflation on the food and beverage sector, a weaker household consumption and increased competitive intensity. We are increasing price investments and sharpening our in-store execution to increase traffic and basket size. E-commerce grew 34%, while increasing sales penetration by 40 basis points versus last year. This quarter, we launched crowdsourcing in all urban supermarkets in Costa Rica and Guatemala. Walmart Connect in the region showed good momentum, increasing revenues 27% versus last year, driven primarily by the digital segment, which more than tripled performance from a small base. As mentioned previously, at consolidated level, total revenue increased 3% in Q4, which was 4.5% in constant currency with new stores contributing 1.7% to total growth. Gross margin expanded 30 basis points to 24% during the quarter, while SG&A remained flat at 15.9% of revenues, increasing 3% versus last year and in line with revenues. EBITDA increased 50 basis points, growing ahead of sales to a 10.5% margin. Net income declined 3.9%, impacted by a higher effective tax rate driven by a true-up done at year-end to reflect inflation impact on our net balance sheet position. Effective tax rate is always subject to changes in law and regulations, but we forecast ETR to be between 25% and 26% for 2026. As we review the full year results, we finished 2025 with revenue growth of 5.5% or 4.6% in constant currency, below our sales guidance, reflecting a softer consumption environment than anticipated at the beginning of the year. Gross margin expanded 10 basis points to 24.2% of sales and SG&A grew 7.7% or 6.6% in constant currency, representing 16.6% of sales. All this resulted in an EBITDA margin of 10.2%. This demonstrates that even as top line growth came under pressure, we focus on the things within our control, preserving the flexibility to continue investing in price, growth and the long-term strength of the business. Now let me move to cash flow. During the year, we generated MXN 89.2 billion in cash from operations, reflecting the strength of the core business. Working capital represented a net benefit of approximately MXN 2.4 billion, driven by inventory improvements. We continue to see opportunity to improve inventory levels in next years, driven by increased automation of processes. Capital expenditures amounted to MXN 39 billion, focusing on high-return projects, including store openings, supply chain, technology and digital capabilities. We stayed a bit short on capital expenditure compared to what we shared on Walmex Day, mainly due to phasing in store investments and some delays in savings on certain tech projects. We returned MXN 37.7 billion to our shareholders through dividends and share repurchases. We closed the year with a cash position of MXN 28.6 billion, maintaining a strong and flexible balance sheet that supports both growth and returns to shareholders. I want to share that we are currently working on our capital return proposal of dividends and share buyback for 2026 with the objective to find the best way of returning value to shareholders in a disciplined and sustainable manner. We plan to share full details during our upcoming Walmex Day. I also want to highlight our expansion activity, which continues to be an important component of our growth strategy. In the fourth quarter, we opened 115 stores across Mexico and Central America, 102 in Mexico and 13 in Central America, adding nearly 128,000 square meters of sales floor. For the full year, we opened 186 stores, 162 in Mexico and 24 in Central America, which sum to almost 212,000 square meters of additional sales area. The primary vehicle of this expansion was Bodega Aurrera Express, where we opened more than 100 new stores during the year. New stores contributed 1.7% for the full year, which is at the high end of the guidance range we shared at Walmex Day 2025. To close, as I usually do, I would like to leave you with three key messages. First, we know what to do. We need to accelerate the execution of our three non-negotiable priorities, leveraging technology and U.S. best practices, while maintaining financial discipline. Second, we are focused on the things we can control. We continue to outperform the market as we grew same-store sales ahead of ANTAD, once again, marking our 12th consecutive year doing so. This consistent relative performance underscore the strength of our value proposition and our ability to gain share over time even in more challenging economic cycles. And third, as we look ahead to 2026, it is paramount to accelerate the speed of execution of our priorities. We believe this will position Walmex well to deliver consistent growth and value creation over the medium term. Thank you for your continued interest in Walmex and for joining us today. We'll see you tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. time of Mexico City for our live Q&A session. Also we look forward to seeing you at our upcoming Walmex Day on the 25th of March, where we'll share more detail on our strategy and priorities. Please contact our IR team to register for these two events.