You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: I'm joined by members of our executive team, including Doug McMillon, Walmart's president and CEO; Brett Biggs, executive vice president and chief financial officer; and John Furner, president and CEO of Walmart U.S. In a few moments, Doug and Brett will provide you an update on the business and discuss fourth quarter and full year results.
That will be followed by our question-and-answer session.
These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, the factors identified in our filings with the SEC.
Let's jump right in.
Our team delivered net sales growth of 7.6% and adjusted earnings per share growth of 9.3%, excluding divestitures.
We continued to gain market share in food and consumables in the U.S., and comp transactions were positive.
Consumer demand during the quarter was strong, and the team overcame a number of challenges in the U.S. and around the world to deliver these strong results.
Going into the quarter, we were confident that we had the people, the products, and the prices to deliver.
Our inventory position improved, and we delivered high sellthroughs in seasonal categories across markets.
Food, consumables, and apparel were also strong globally.
We comped low single digits in general merchandise in the U.S. against strong results last year.
And Sam's Club saw broad-based strength across categories in the U.S. and in China.
Our merchants are doing a nice job of navigating the pressure from cost of goods inflation with our customers and shareholders in mind.
I'd like how we're mixing out the business.
Consolidated gross profit rate increased 10 basis points for the quarter, including more than 50 basis points in Walmart U.S. We're working closely with our suppliers to manage inflation, finding a few places where we can roll back prices.
And we're paying close attention to how we manage our opening price point items.
Q4 and the full year are proof points that we can keep our price gaps in the range where we want them, grow market share, and deliver against our top- and bottom-line growth algorithm.
Our associates did an amazing job of serving customers and members during this busy season, even as we faced omicron and supply chain challenges.
This quarter's COVID leave peak was larger than anything we had experienced in 2020 or previously in 2021.
We hired more associates.
And our plan called for to help fill that gap, which negatively impacted expenses.
But it was clearly needed.
I'm grateful to our associates and store and club management teams for how they set priorities on behalf of our customers and members during the quarter.
As I visit stores and clubs, it's inspiring to see how our team is navigating such a fluid environment.
They're delivering tremendous growth while making significant progress against our longer-term strategy.
During the fiscal year just ended, excluding divestitures, we grew net sales by 9%, grew operating profit by 18%, invested $13 billion in capex to grow our business, returned 16 billion to shareholders via share buybacks and dividends, grew advertising business globally to $2.1 billion, and took important steps to build our U.S. financial services capabilities with agreements to make two key acquisitions.
Sometimes, it feels like 2020 and 2021 were just one long year.
If you look at growth since the beginning of fiscal '21 through the end of fiscal '22, excluding divestitures, our company is about 17% larger in terms of revenue, 31% larger in terms of operating income, and globally, our percentage of digital sales grew from 6% to 13%.
As the company grows, we're fueled by the new business model and flywheel we outlined last year.
Our strategy is coming to life.
Ensuring that we deliver our strategy is where I invest the majority of my time.
It starts with the customer and earning primary destination.
The big basket stock-up trip is important.
It's foundational to our relationship with families.
We earn that shopping occasion by running great stores and clubs and offering seamless pickup and delivery experiences, including for our Walmart Plus and in-home members in the U.S.
Our membership offering, Walmart Plus, continues to be an important piece of what we're building.
We're adding capacity for pickup and delivery.
We increased capacity by nearly 20% last year, and we expect to increase capacity by another 35% this year.
For Walmart InHome, we recently announced an expansion of this membership service to make it available to about 30 million homes in the U.S., up from 6 million.
To enable the expansion, we're creating roles for more than 3,000 associate delivery drivers.
The majority of these roles will be filled by existing experienced associates.
We'll be building out a fleet of all electric delivery vans to support our delivery services and our goal of a zero emissions logistics fleet by 2040.
Our flywheel is designed to serve families more broadly, deepening our relationship with them and creating a healthy mix of merchandise and services for our business.
that will operate under the ONE brand going forward.
The combined talent of our JV leadership team and that of the pending acquisitions of ONE Finance and Even is impressive.
And our plans are aggressive.
We can help our customers and Walmart Plus members save money, have an experience with less friction, and help strengthen the financial position for millions of families.
As with our advertising business, our financial services capabilities cross borders.
Our PhonePe business in India is growing incredibly fast.
And we have strong capabilities in Mexico, which is such an important market for us.
As we look to improve the customer experience and strengthen the mix of our business, expanding our marketplace is important.
We added more than 20,000 new sellers to the platform in the U.S. last year and expect to add nearly 40,000 more this year.
We're now up to nearly 170 million SKUs, and we're adding more every day.
marketplace to sellers from India and created a dedicated team there to help sellers onboard and grow.
Many sellers are looking to diversify their business, and they're pushing us to add capabilities, including the expansion of our Fulfillment Services.
We grew our U.S. GMV delivered by our Fulfillment Services by 500% last year.
We expect the robust growth will continue this year as we add more capacity.
For Q4, our Fulfillment Services represented 44% of total marketplace orders in India and 22% in Mexico.
Growing our marketplace expands choice for our customers, helps our sellers grow, and enhances our profit margins.
Our plan for this year includes strengthening the experience for sellers and adding fulfillment capacity so customers have access to more items faster.
It's clear to me that we have years of profitable marketplace and Fulfillment Services growth ahead of us.
Staying on the theme of fulfillment and scaling new businesses, we recently launched Walmart GoLocal, a last-mile delivery solution using our Spark Driver platform to help businesses of all sizes reach more customers.
GoLocal is making deliveries for the Home Depot and other large retailers.
But I'm most excited about serving small local retailers.
We have nearly a thousand GoLocal service to pickup points, and we expect to end this year closer to 5,000.
This is good for customers, our clients, and for us, as we lower the cost per order by increasing the combined order size and the route density.
As we bring more customers, sellers, and suppliers into our ecosystem, it expands our ability to monetize those relationships.
A great example is our advertising business.
Globally, it's been growing at a high rate with high margins and is now a $2.1 billion business in only a few years.
And we expect this strong growth to continue.
And as our e-commerce business, including marketplace, continues to grow, so will our advertising business.
and India and growing in places like Mexico, Canada, and Chile.
Importantly, we're beginning to build tech platforms that can be leveraged in multiple countries.
Our strong team of technologists and our digital transformation enable global synergies.
We see traction in our core business, as well as in our newer businesses.
There's real power in the ability to make these pieces mutually reinforcing to design them such that one portion of a customer relationship leads them to another because it's easy and intuitive.
Connecting B2B opportunities, like advertising, enables us to grow earnings and make key investments at the same time.
Because of how the fly wheel is coming together, I feel great about our ability to deliver against the growth algorithm we discussed last year of about 4% top-line growth and operating income growth rates higher than sales.
We've highlighted the increased costs we had in Q4 from COVID, supply chain, and wages, and some of these costs are likely to continue through part of this year.
But I feel confident in the underlying strength of the business and our ability to deliver the growth we expect.
The Walmart we're building is becoming more impactful for our customers and members, more digital, more automated, and more diversified on the top and bottom lines.
Now, let's move on to our performance by operating segment.
The team had a great holiday season.
They drove comp sales of 5.6%.
You know about our strength in food and consumables.
But despite the supply chain challenges, the seasonal hard lines execution for holiday looked good in stores.
We're continuing to navigate cost pressures and in-stock challenges.
But overall, I'm really proud of the team for delivering the holiday season, and I believe we'll work our way to an improved in-stock level through the course of the year.
Building a seamless omnichannel experience for customers and prioritizing convenience for them is critical.
Our stores have become hybrid.
They're both stores and fulfillment centers.
Last year, we increased the number of orders coming from our stores by 170% versus the previous year, and that's on top of more than 500% from the year before.
Having inventory so close to so many customers is a competitive advantage.
In some cases, we're getting items to customers in hours rather than days.
In Sam's Club U.S., the momentum continues.
Sales and membership were strong.
Excluding fuel and tobacco, comps were 10.8% for the quarter and nearly 26% on a two-year stack.
Membership income grew 9.1%, driven by membership count, which reached another record high during the quarter.
The team leveraged operating expenses and grew operating income 24%, excluding fuel.
They had another fantastic quarter and year.
Sam's continues to drive digital innovation and add capabilities.
Our bold and blue club remodels and our strengthened pickup in delivery services will drive growth.
At Walmart International, we had another strong year with good progress in all aspects of the flywheel.
Overall sales were strong again in Q4 with growth of 9.8% in constant currency, excluding divestitures.
China, Mexico, and Flipkart led the way.
Our 21% e-commerce penetration is a new record and up nearly 400 basis points from last year.
We get to serve a spectrum of holidays and festivals during the holiday quarter from Diwali and Big Billion Days in India through to preparation for Chinese New Year.
During Big Billion Days, 40% of sellers were first time sellers on the marketplace, and more than 100,000 kiranas participated by making last-mile deliveries.
This is strong inclusive growth.
While our omnichannel model gives the gift of time, access and affordability remain important.
We're expanding our ecosystem, and we've made investments in areas such as healthcare, marketplace, telecommunications, and our online food business.
A few great examples include the launch of Flipkart Health Plus that aims to increase access to affordable care in India.
And the acquisition of Foodmaestro in Canada to build more personalized shopping experiences for customers.
And, BAIT, our value-based internet and telephone service that enables customers in Mexico to enjoy digital connectivity, surpassed 2 million members.
It's great to see all three of our operating segments doing so well.
I'm grateful to our strong and capable leadership team and to all of our associates.
We've had an incredible couple of years during these challenging times.
We have momentum in the business.
We have aggressive plans, and we're executing on the strategy.
It still feels like we're just getting started.
We wrapped up another great year with a strong fourth quarter and good momentum as we start the new year.
Over the last couple of years, each quarter has presented unique challenges, but I'm proud of how we've navigated each one of those.
The fourth quarter was no different as we faced the rise of omicron with its impact on the supply chain and our associates.
This resulted in some significant unexpected expenses.
But despite that, we delivered the top- and bottom-line results we expected.
We continue to execute on our strategic initiatives to fulfill the vision we outlined last February.
flywheel is accelerating and is evident through initiatives like our pending fintech JV acquisitions, the launch of a new data business, and acceleration of last-mile delivery.
Sam's growth and membership income has been strong throughout the year as we expand Omni options including club pickup.
These and other key initiatives represent large revenue and profit opportunities over the next few years.
For the full year, we had record sales of $568 billion with increased traffic to stores and clubs, while e-commerce penetration approached 13%.
Walmart U.S. grew sales by more than $23 billion and saw strong market share gains in food and consumables.
Over the past two years, our U.S. segments have grown sales by $67 billion, or 17%, and operating income by 25%.
Now, let's discuss Q4 results.
As a reminder, the previously announced international divestitures significantly affect year-over-year comparisons, so my comments today will exclude the effect of divestitures.
Total constant currency revenue grew 7.9% to over $153 billion and reached another important milestone with quarterly net sales exceeding $150 billion.
gross margin rate increasing by a healthy 54 basis points, reflecting primarily price management resulting from cost increases in mix, along with benefits from a growing advertising business, partially offset by higher supply chain costs.
Supply chain costs were over $400 million higher than expected, but we expect some of those costs to abate overtime.
International gross margin rates were lower due primarily to format mix.
wage costs were partially offset by strong sales and lower COVID costs versus last year.
Although COVID costs were lower than last year, we have significantly higher associate leave costs in the U.S. than anticipated.
In the first three quarters combined, COVID leave costs were about $600 million but increased over $450 million just in Q4, presenting an unexpected headwind of over $300 million.
Despite these expense challenges, adjusted operating income increased more than 6% and earnings per share increased more than 9%.
We're in a great financial position, enabling us to allocate capital toward both growth and shareholder returns.
Free cash flow was $11.1 billion for the year, down versus last year due primarily to inventory build throughout the year, higher capex, and cost increases.
We increased share repurchases significantly this year with buybacks of just under $10 billion, a pace we plan to continue or increase in the coming year given our view of the long-term value of the company.
ROI increased 90 basis points to just under 15%, the best level in five years due primarily to growth in operating income.
Now, let's discuss the quarterly results for each segment.
had its first ever $100 billion-plus sales quarter with sales of $105 billion.
Comp sales grew 5.6%, up more than 14% on a two-year stack.
We continue to grow grocery market share as food comps increased high single digits, while health & wellness, apparel, seasonal, and automotive categories were also strong.
Transactions were up more than 3% despite COVID pressures.
E-commerce sales grew 1% against strong gains last year, resulting in a 70% two-year stack.
We continue to see elevated levels of cost inflation and have taken prudent steps to manage pricing while having slightly wider price gaps than pre-pandemic.
We have a good balance of growing market share while managing price with both customers and shareholders in mind.
We continue to make strong progress in some of our newer higher margin initiatives.
Walmart Connect advertising experienced robust sales growth this year with a strong pipeline of new advertisers and large growth opportunities ahead.
In fact, the number of active advertisers using Walmart Connect grew more than 130% year over year.
And about half of the ad sales came from automated channels in Q4, more than double last year.
We expect Walmart Connect to continue to scale over the next few years with plans to become a top 10 ad business in the midterm.
Growing e-commerce marketplace at WFS have been a priority over the past couple of years as we've invested to expand fulfillment capacity, introduce new services for sellers, and double the number of items available for customers.
In fact, we expect to have over 200 million items in our e-commerce assortment by the end of the year.
The expansion of WFS has also been a key unlock in bringing more sellers to Walmart's marketplace.
Customers increasingly want home delivery, and we had a six-fold increase in delivery in the fourth quarter versus pre-pandemic levels.
We continue expanding capabilities, including announcing the acceleration of in-home delivery to 30 million households by year-end.
We also announced our new fintech business ONE in January, with the pending acquisitions of fintech platforms ONE Finance and Even.
SG&A expenses deleveraged 95 basis points as increased wage costs were partially offset by strong sales and lower total COVID-related expenses year over year.
Still, as I mentioned earlier, COVID leave costs were much higher than expected.
Operating income grew slightly, aided by strong margins as well as solid growth in membership and other income.
Inventory increased about 28% overall, including higher cost of goods due to inflation, mix, and higher-than-normal in-transit shipments, reflecting continued efforts to improve in-stock.
International sales were strong, up nearly 10%, led by China, Mexico, and Flipkart as seasonal events, omni growth, and good inventory position contributed to results.
E-commerce sales in constant currency grew 21% on top of strong gains last year with growth of more than 75% on a two-year stack.
China comps increased nearly 20% in constant currency with continued strength from Sam's Clubs, as well as more than 90% growth in e-commerce sales.
Comp sales in Mexico increased nearly 8% and grew faster than the market according to ANTAD.
Flipkart had another good sales quarter, aided by strong holiday events and favorable trends in monthly active customers and users.
We're also pleased with the strong growth of PhonePe with TPV of more than 130% versus last year with a current run rate of $650 billion.
In Canada, comp sales were up 4.6%, led by in-store shopping and comps increased more than 13% on a two-year stack.
International adjusted operating income in constant currency increased nearly 3%, reflecting lower COVID costs, partly offset by gross margin rate decrease related to higher sales penetration from Sam's China and e-commerce.
For the full year, international adjusted operating income grew 12.7%.
And we feel confident about our international business as we head into the new year.
Sam's Club had another impressive quarter with comps up 10.8%, excluding fuel and tobacco, an increase of nearly 26% on a two-year stack.
Transactions increased 7% and ticket was up 3.2%.
E-commerce sales grew 21%, and we expanded the rollout of delivery capabilities of digital orders to nearly all clubs during the quarter.
Sam's is leveraging Walmart's GoLocal last-mile delivery service to provide more convenience to members.
Membership income was up more than 9% with another record in member counts and strong Plus penetration.
Operating income was up 41% as higher fuel and membership income, as well as strong expense leverage were partially offset by gross margin pressure from inflation and supply chain costs.
Now, let's turn to guidance.
We feel very good about the underlying strength of the business and believe we can deliver full year growth in FY '23 that aligns with the growth algorithm we discussed last year.
As you saw in Q4, we're still challenged with increased costs related to COVID and supply chain disruptions.
Our guidance assumes that we will see some relief from that as the year progresses and that the U.S. consumer remains in a generally favorable economic position throughout the year.
stimulus in FY '22.
As a reminder, the divestitures of our businesses in the U.K. and Japan were completed near the end of the first quarter last year, contributing about $5 billion in sales and about $0.07 of earnings per share in Q1, FY '22.
Our guidance will be ex-divestitures.
We expect total company sales to increase about 4% with Walmart U.S. comp sales slightly above 3% for the year.
Given the timing of stimulus overlaps, we expect about a 1% to 2% comp sales increase from Walmart U.S. in the first quarter, followed by somewhat higher comp sales growth throughout the remainder of the year.
We expect FY '23 total company operating income to increase at a rate slightly higher than sales growth and earnings per share to grow 5% to 6% versus FY '22 adjusted earnings per share due in part to our aggressive share repurchase program.
The quarterly profit growth cadence is expected to be quite variable due to last year's U.S. stimulus, as well as lapping wage investments initiated in February and September 2021.
As you would expect, the variability of the quarters looks less extreme when viewed on a two-year stack.
We expect Q1 operating income and earnings per share to be down low double digits to low-teens as we cycle the stimulus effects from last year that resulted in nearly 30% operating income growth, as well as increased wages this year.
On a two-year stack, Q1 operating income would still be up a mid-teens percentage.
Q2 and Q3 operating income and earnings per share are expected to increase at low to mid-single digit rates, as year-over-year comparisons ease due in part to the moderation of stimulus benefits last year.
We expect higher growth rates in the back half of the year as we fully cycle wage investments, resulting in fourth quarter operating income and earnings per share increasing by a high-teens percentage.
Q4 operating income will also benefit from some timing versus FY '22, particularly in international, as well as cycling elevated COVID leave costs in FY '22.
Our effective tax rate is expected to increase to 25% to 26% due primarily to earnings mix.
For the year, we expect gross margin rates to increase due to pricing, mix, and new business initiatives.
Although, there will be variability quarter-to-quarter as is usually the case.
For the first time in a while, we expect some expense deleveraging as we continue to see elevated supply chain wage and tech costs.
We'll continue the multiyear journey of accelerated capital investment focused on increasing fulfillment capacity, automation, and technology to enhance productivity.
FY '22 capex was about $13.1 billion, lower than anticipated due to timing of projects impacted by supply chain challenges.
Due to that and continued investment in strategic priorities, we anticipate this year's capex being at the upper end of the guidance we gave last year of 2.5% to 3% of sales.
In closing, I'm really pleased with our FY '22 results.
I'm very confident as I look to this year and to the future.
The company is in an enviable position to serve customers and members and also to achieve our financial goals, benefiting shareholders.

user
quarterly ecommerce sales grew 1% and 70% on a two-year stack.
q4 inventory up 26% globally; 28% in u.s., affected by higher cost of goods, mix, and higher in-transit shipments.
quarterly walmart u.s. comp sales, without fuel, up 5.6%.
membership income increased 9.1%.
sees fy 2023 walmart u.s. comp sales growth, excluding.
fuel, slightly above 3%.
sees fy 2023 consolidated net sales, excluding divestitures, increase about 4%.

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