WMT's Net Revenue

[luiguerreiro@gmail.com]

Hi there,

In WMT's case, why didn't we adjust WMT's Net Revenue down to reflect the US$1.5 billion non-recurring / non-core foreign exchange income due to favorable FX conditions in FY2006?

Cheers

[wsthost]

Good question. You can go either way here.

Reasons to support adjusting FX in revenue:
- we did so in our deeper Segment Build-up for WMT's Revenue
(but if you may recall, we did so ONLY to get a run-rate growth rate for WMT'International Segment not necessarily backing it out)
- it's non-recurring (BUT, is it really?) and non-core
- main competitors don't have much FX

Reasons to support NOT adjusting FX in revenue:
- FX is really part of everyday business especially given WMT's large international operations
- other competitors do have some FX (small part of COST only)
- it'll happen next year again, if you can predict FX rates, then go for it!
- for comparability purposes, it is not standard practice to adjust the comps either, so keep everyone at same basis
- as a %age of WMT's entire revenue pie, it's really small, although we argue it's a large %age of the $ change