Walmart is executing better than it has in the past two decades.

The old Walmart was focused only on value.

The new Walmart is focused on value and convenience.

U.S. revenues grew 4.6% year over year. SSS grew 3.8% year over year. Of the 3.8% SSS growth, E-commerce contributed 2.8% or 75%. U.S. E-commerce grew 22%. Share gains were led by higher-income households, a first for Walmart.

(For the past two months, I’ve tried Walmart’s delivery. I am pleased with the order accuracy and tight drop-off prediction windows. Walmart has won share and Target (Shipt) has lost share in our household).

In the year-ago quarter, transactions grew 2.9% and price increases contributed 4.4% for a total 7.4% SSS increase. This past reported quarter, all the growth came from transactions. Prices were flat.

Walmart continues to gain share in both Grocery and Merchandise.

International sales grew 12% and International E-commerce grew 19%. Flipkart (India) is gaining share in a large and fragmented market. Walmex in Mexico and Walmart China are other big contributors in the International segment. The operating margin for the international business was the highest in six years.

Sam’s Club was a distant no. 2 in the club market to Costco. Today, the results are very close, which speaks to the operational improvement at Sam's over the past five years.

Good news for consumers! Walmart rolled back (decreased) prices on more items in 1Q than in 4Q. A basket of items for Easter had lower prices. For the quarter, merchandise prices were lower 5% year-over-year and grocery prices were up 2%.

Walmart’s marketplace is growing rapidly. In the U.S., the marketplace SKU count is 420 million as 36% more sellers came on board. All markets grew > 10%.

Advertising revenues grew 24%. A growing marketplace and growing seller count at both Walmart and Sam’s is a significant contributor to product Ads. As a reminder, Amazon’s advertising business is currently at a $48 billion annual run rate, growing 24%. Walmart’s advertising business, while small today, has a considerable runway for growth.

Lastly, membership revenues grew 21% helped by China membership count growth of 25%. This was helped by new member signups and lower churn. Growing third-party sales and advertising revenues are offsetting the deflation in merchandise and price rollbacks.

Gross margin grew 40 bps, to 24.1% from 23.7%. Consumer behavior has been consistent since late last year. Consumers are seeking out value and Walmart is in a good position to deliver said value. The sales cadence throughout the quarter was consistent. An extra day in February and early Easter helped the first two months. April was slightly weaker but sounds like May is back to trend.

Walmart is executing better than it has in the past two decades.

Doug McMillon is underrated as a CEO. When he took over the role, he realized that Walmart did not have the R&D muscle to compete with Amazon. So he bought Jet.Com

In hindsight, he acquired the R&D muscle. Today, Walmart's Omni & marketplace capabilities are impressive.

The addition of John Rainey beefed up the Mgmt suite. He was an underrated CFO during his entire tenure at Paypal.

Amazon has a worthy opponent.