Walmart (WMT) and Home Depot (HD) Results Show US Consumers Cut Back but Still Find Room for Splurges

The results from Walmart and Home Depot describe a consumer under pressure rather than one that has stopped spending altogether. Walmart reported fiscal-year revenue of $713.2B, up 4.7% year over year, with diluted EPS of $2.73 and a 3.1% net margin. Home Depot reported revenue of $164.7B, up 3.2% year over year, with diluted EPS of $14.23, a 33.3% gross margin and an 8.6% net margin.

The contrast is between the frequency and type of purchases each retailer captures. Walmart’s business is built around recurring grocery and general-merchandise traffic, giving it exposure to consumers seeking value as well as to occasional discretionary purchases. Home Depot is more dependent on larger home-improvement projects and durable goods, where customers can delay spending even if they continue to fund smaller repairs or selected upgrades.

For WMT, the concrete mechanism is scale: $713.2B of revenue and 4.7% year-over-year growth indicate that the value-oriented model is still generating broad sales. Its 3.1% net margin also shows how much of that volume must be converted at a low bottom-line margin. For HD, $164.7B of revenue and 3.2% growth came with materially higher reported profitability, including an 8.6% net margin, but the revenue base is more directly tied to project activity and household willingness to commit to larger purchases.

The reporting does not establish that consumers are uniformly cutting back, nor does it provide a clean measure of how much spending is shifting between the two retailers. The headline’s “splurges” framing also leaves open which categories are holding up and whether those purchases are recurring or isolated. The available figures are fiscal-year results, so they do not by themselves identify the next-quarter trajectory or separate volume from pricing and mix.

The next useful evidence will be each company’s next earnings release and management commentary on traffic, discretionary categories, project demand and margins. For WMT, the key numbers are whether revenue growth remains above the reported 4.7% rate and whether the 3.1% net margin changes. For HD, investors will need to see whether revenue growth improves from 3.2% and whether the 8.6% net margin holds as larger projects recover or remain deferred.