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Wal-Mart's sales rise 4.3 percent after shopping hours extended

Wal-Mart Stores Inc, the world's largest retailer, said same-store sales at its US stores rose about 4.3 percent this month, helped by a strong start to the holiday shopping season.

The company had forecast a sales gain this month of between 3 to 5 percent from a year earlier at its US stores open at least 21 months. The Bentonville, Arkansas-based retailer updated results through Friday in a recorded call on Saturday.

Holiday spending the Friday after Thanksgiving helped push general merchandise sales past food for the first week this month. More than 2 million customers visited Wal-Marts in the first two hours of shopping on Friday to grab bargains, Pat Curran, executive vice president for store operations, said in an interview.

"Wal-Mart got out very early this year with their holiday marketing campaign," SunTrust Robinson Humphrey analyst Patrick McKeever said in an interview.

McKeever rates the shares a "buy."

Wal-Mart locations opened at 5am, an hour earlier than last year, and shoppers streamed in for discounted items such as a Hewlett-Packard Co desktop computer for US$398 and a US$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.
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