By Sam Boughedda
A Morgan Stanley analyst released a research note on Walmart (NYSE:WMT) Monday, providing bullish commentary on the stock.
The analyst has an Overweight rating and a $150 price target on Walmart, whose shares are up 0.7% at the time of writing.
"Walmart+ has ~17m members, a ~1m increase over our last estimate from early May. Per our latest AlphaWise Consumer Pulse Survey Wave 25 (conducted 8/2- 8/5) Walmart+ has 17.0m members, or 13.0% US household penetration," the analyst said. "Our latest 17m estimate is up ~1m from our last published estimate from early May, though we conducted some surveys in between that show membership fluctuating in the 16-18m range; we think ~17m is thus a reasonable current estimate."
The analyst said those numbers suggest membership momentum continues to climb at a "relatively modest, but steady pace." He also said the top reason users subscribe to Walmart+ is free same-day delivery.
"Our prior ~16m estimate from May was also ~1m above the prior estimate from late January. In all, membership has grown from ~8-9m at year-end '20 to ~10m at mid-year '21 to ~15m at year-end '21 to ~17m currently," the analyst added. "We continue to observe ~80% of existing Walmart+ members are also Prime members, suggesting some openness to having two memberships. Also, the fact that the defining Walmart+ feature continues to be same day delivery (focused on Grocery) remains a competitive advantage over Prime, which offers similar Grocery benefits but which are not as widespread or as well regarded by consumers in our view."