Better than expected Sales for Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart Stores extended shopping hours coupled with heavy discounts on Friday, the start of the holiday shopping season, seems to have paid off. The world’s largest retailer said Saturday that it expects to post a solid 4.3 percent gain in same-store sales for November, helped by better than expected sales during the post-Thanksgiving day shopping rush. That’s at the midpoint of its growth forecast of 3 to 5 percent. The sales results cover the four-week period through Friday.

``Wal-Mart got out very early this year with their holiday marketing campaign,’’ SunTrust Robinson Humphrey analyst Patrick McKeever said in an interview. ``They’re very aggressive and very well positioned from a merchandise standpoint.’’ McKeever is based in Atlanta and rates the shares a ``buy.’’

Wal-Mart locations opened at 5 a.m., an hour earlier than last year, and shoppers streamed in for discounted items such as a Hewlett-Packard Co. desktop computer for $ 398 and a $ 68 Venturer portable DVD/CD player. The company said it had ``good, steady’’ traffic after the initial rush with shoppers buying things throughout each store, according to the recording.

The November-December holiday season typically accounts for about one-fourth of annual retail sales, and the biggest chunk of profits for jewelers, electronics chains and clothing stores.

"If we see (after-Thanksgiving) sales growth over 5 or 6 percent, that’s a very positive indication of a good holiday season, if they can sustain it," said Darrell Rigby, head of the global retail practice for consultants Bain & Co.

Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer, estimated that November sales rose 4.3 percent at its U.S. stores open at least a year, a key retail measure known as same-store sales.

Wal-Mart got off to a quick start this holiday season by launching its advertising campaign on Nov. 1, the earliest in company history.