Walmart's Grocery Stays Resilient: Is Value the Key Share Lever?

Walmart Inc.’s WMT grocery business remained a steady contributor to U.S. performance in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, reflecting continued customer engagement around food and consumables. In Walmart U.S., grocery delivered a low single-digit comparable sales increase during the period, with growth in both transactions and unit volumes.

Grocery strength was led by fresh food sales, followed by pantry items. Consumables also posted growth, supported by categories such as personal care and beauty. Management noted that grocery performance remained broad-based, even as the company lapped prior-year impacts related to port disruptions.

Value execution remained a consistent theme in grocery during the quarter. Walmart had approximately 7,400 active rollbacks in Walmart U.S., with more than half of those rollbacks concentrated in grocery. The company reiterated that many of these Rollbacks are structured as 90-day price reductions, and management said that more than 2,000 rollbacks since the beginning of the year have transitioned into new everyday low prices.

Inflation levels in Walmart U.S. moderated during the quarter. Like-for-like inflation was 1.3% in Walmart U.S., with food and general merchandise inflation running at low single-digit levels. Grocery performance also benefited from Walmart’s omnichannel execution. Walmart U.S. e-commerce sales increased 28% in the quarter, with management highlighting strong growth in store-fulfilled pickup and delivery. Nearly 50% growth was reported in store-fulfilled delivery, and management stated that approximately 35% of store-fulfilled digital orders were delivered in under three hours during the quarter.

Walmart U.S. saw share gains across income brackets in the third quarter, including higher-income households. Grocery was cited alongside health and wellness and general merchandise as categories contributing to those gains. Overall, grocery appears to be a consistent traffic driver within Walmart U.S., supported by price rollbacks, everyday low pricing and improving fulfillment speed.

What the Latest Metrics Say About Walmart

Walmart, which competes with Costco Wholesale Corporation COST and Target Corporation TGT, has seen its shares rally 24.6% in the past year compared with the industry’s growth of 22%. Shares of Costco have declined 4.1%, while Target tumbled 24.5% in the aforementioned period.
 

From a valuation standpoint, Walmart's forward 12-month price-to-earnings ratio stands at 39.04, higher than the industry’s 34.91. WMT carries a Value Score of C. Walmart is trading at a premium to Target (with a forward 12-month P/E ratio of 13.54) but at a discount to Costco (42.85). 
 

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Walmart’s current financial-year sales and earnings per share implies year-over-year growth of 4.6% and 4.8%, respectively.
 

Walmart currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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