Walmart's ad revenue grows 38%, turning Walmart Connect into a margin lever
CFO John David Rainey framed the numbers in margin terms on Walmart's fiscal second-quarter earnings call: advertising revenue grew 38% globally, according to Adweek's coverage, while total revenue rose 5.9% to $187.9 billion and adjusted EPS hit $0.81 against a $0.74 Wall Street estimate. Walmart raised its full-year adjusted EPS guidance to $2.80-$2.87 from $2.75-$2.85. Walmart Connect grew 43% in the U.S. excluding Vizio, and ecommerce sales rose 23% globally, 24% in the U.S. Rainey said advertising growth needs to keep outpacing ecommerce growth for incremental margins to climb. The company closed its $1.4 billion acquisition of self-serve CTV platform Vibe.co this month, adding to the ad inventory from its 2024 Vizio deal, and its AI shopping agent Sparky now carries ads, with users spending 40% more per order and Sparky usage up 70% year over year.
Retail media budgets inside Walmart Connect are moving toward full-stack contracts that bundle inventory, data access, measurement and creative requirements for CTV and AI surfaces. That pushes review and reporting cadence toward trade-spend scrutiny, with tighter performance reporting and faster iteration cycles. Brands that keep shopper marketing and brand video budgets in separate teams, with separate agencies and separate measurement, face pressure to unify audience definitions and reporting as Walmart merges retail media with its Vizio and Vibe.co CTV assets. Product data becomes part of ad performance too: if Sparky's 40% order-value lift holds, SKU accuracy and content ownership start to matter as much as bid strategy.