Walmart expects virtually no sales growth this year

Walmart is expecting virtually no sales growth in the coming fiscal year.

In its fourth-quarter earnings results released Thursday morning, the retail giant said it expects "relatively flat" net sales growth for fiscal 2017.

"This change reflects the impact from recently announced store closures globally, as well as the continued strengthening of the U.S. dollar," the company said in its statement.

"Excluding the impact of currency and store closures, our net sales growth guidance would have remained in the 3 to 4 percent growth range."

Last October, Walmart had warned that it was expecting profits to decline over the next two years, as it continued to invest in higher wages for staff. And so even though the company just lowered its expectations, it had telegraphed some of the expected weakness declines ahead of time.

The rise of online shopping, especially at giant merchants like Amazon, has also threatened Walmart's dominance of the retail industry.

This earnings announcement was also preceded by news that the hundreds of Walmart Express stores are going to be closed, affecting up to 10,000 employees in the US, and a total of 16,000 globally.

As for its fourth-quarter performance, revenues missed analysts' forecasts, but earnings beat.

Revenues totaled $129.7 billion ($131 billion expected according to Bloomberg), and adjusted earnings per share came in at $1.49 ($1.46 expected).

For the full fiscal year 2016, revenues fell 1.4% to $129.7 billion, the first such drop in at least 25 years.

Walmart shares fell by as much as 4% in pre-market trading. They had fallen 23% over the past 12 months ahead of the earnings announcement.

More to come ...