Wal-Mart sees increased sales in the month of December

The world’s largest chain of retail stores Wal-Mart has revealed that they are noticing a minor improvement in the sales in the month of December. The month had started with sluggish sales for the retailing giant and the market picked up as the month progressed and the holiday season arrived in the last week of the month. The company estimated that the sales have improved by 2.2 percent at its U.S. stores.

The company would be releasing the final details on the December sales on Thursday. However, the estimated rise of 2.2 percent would be the smallest gain achieved by Wal-Mart in quite a while. Market analysts expected the sales to go up by at least 3% in the last month of the year. They are hoping that the improvement in the sales of gift cards would result in some sales delayed to January helping them recover from this slump.

Wal-Mart Vice Chairman John Menzer had already said a couple of days ago that they sold more gift cards than they had anticipated. And considering the retailers record revenue from gift cards only when they are redeemed, not when they are sold, the sales of January should get a boost from this. The company’s biggest rivals Target Corp. are doing relatively well and are expected to see gains of close to 4 percent to 5 percent in sales.