It looks like Walmart’s (WMT, +3.74%) tepid e-commerce growth over the holiday season may have been a blip after all.
The mass merchandise retailer said on Thursday that U.S. online sales had risen 33% in the first fiscal quarter of 2018, well above the pace during the fourth quarter last year, and said it continued to believe e-commerce would be up 40% for the full year.
That came as a relief to investors, who sent shares up 1.4% in premarket trading, given the billions of dollars Walmart has spent in recent years on beefing up its e-commerce muscles to better compete with Amazon.com (AMZN, +0.73%) and on its stores to turn them into effective hubs as Walmart blends the digital with the physical.
