【雅思课外精读】新冠疫情中，沃尔玛成为美国零售业的赢家

　　【雅思课外精读】新冠疫情中，沃尔玛成为美国零售业的赢家   原文译文

　　*注：本文摘自11月21日《经济学人》

　　Beastly earnings暴利Walmart has another stellar quarter沃尔玛会迎来一个发展之期The pandemic is producing clear winners and losers among America’s retailers新冠疫情中，美国零售业的赢家和输家正在产生

　　1. HOW HAVE America’s retailers coped with covid-19? “We’re still learning,” declared John Furner, who runs Walmart’s vast American operations, on November 17th, as the supermarket giant reported third-quarter results. He is being too modest. Walmart, as well as a handful of other big firms such as Target, its smaller rival, and Home Depot, a DIY Goliath benefiting from housebound home-improvers staring at dingy walls and outdated kitchens, are thriving.

　　美国的零售商是如何应对新冠疫情的?11月17日，在超市巨头沃尔玛公布第三季度业绩时，负责沃尔玛美国业务的约翰•弗纳称:“我们还在努力学习。”他太谦虚了。沃尔玛和其他一些大公司，如其较小的竞争对手塔吉特(Target)和DIY巨头家得宝(Home Depot)，都在蓬勃发展。家得宝从那些困守家中只能盯着家里脏兮兮的墙壁和毫无时尚感的厨房的居家人士身上赚得盆满钵满。

　　2. Paul Lejuez of Citigroup, a bank, described the three months to October as “another stellar quarter” for Walmart. Total global revenues increased by 5.2%, year on year, to $135bn. If anything, international sales, which grew by just 1.3%, dragged down strong performance in America, which accounts for the bulk of revenues; Walmart has said it will sell most of its flagging Japanese supermarkets. By contrast, domestic comparable-store sales, a standard industry metric, rose by 6.4%. Home Depot’s quarterly revenues shot up by 23% compared with a year ago, to $33.5bn, keeping up the previous quarter’s pace. Target’s operating profit nearly doubled to $1.9bn.

　　花旗银行的Paul Lejuez将截止到今年十月的沃尔玛第三季度称作是“又一个辉煌季度。”沃尔玛全球总收入同比增长5.2%，达到1350亿美元。如果说有什么不足的话，就是沃尔玛国际销售额仅增长了1.3%，拖了后腿，毕竟美国市场正在强劲增长中，而国际销售额是沃尔玛收入的主要来源。沃尔玛表示，将出售旗下大部分效益不好的日本超市。相比之下，作为行业标准衡量标准的国内同店销售额增长了6.4%。家得宝的季度收入与去年同期相比增长了23%，达到335亿美元，保持了上一季度的增长速度。塔吉特的营业利润几乎翻了一番，达到19亿美元。

　　3. Shining retail stars mask darkness elsewhere in the industry. American shoppers rebounded faster than elsewhere in the rich world (see chart). But retail sales grew by just 0.3% last month, compared with the one before, the slowest in half a year. They softened in most of the 13 categories tracked. As investors swooned over Walmart and Home Depot, Kohl’s, a middling retail chain, reported falling revenues. “The distinction between the haves and the have-nots has gotten even sharper,” says Simeon Gutman of Morgan Stanley, an investment bank.

　　零售业明星企业的迅速发展使人们忽视了这个行业的问题。美国消费者的反弹速度比其他发达国家都要快(见图表)。但是上个月的零售额与之前相比仅增长了0.3%，是半年来最慢的。在被追踪的13个零售商品类别中，大多数都出现了疲软。当投资者因沃尔玛和家得宝的增长感到晕眩时，中等规模的零售连锁企业科尔(Kohl’s)报告收入下降。投资银行摩根斯坦利的Simeon Gutman说:“大企业和小企业之间的分化更加严重了。”

​

　　4. Mr Gutman points to the successful firms’ superior management of diverse, global supply chains. This allows shoppers to satisfy most of their retail needs in one store—particularly important in a pandemic, when people are keen to limit their outings. Walmart’s customers make fewer trips to the store but spend more whenever they do, he notes.

　　Gutman指出，这些大公司对其全球供应链进行了卓越的管理，使得顾客能够在一家店里买到大部分商品，这在疫情期间尤为重要，因为疫情期间人们都在尽力减少出行。他说，沃尔玛的顾客去商店的次数减少了，但花的钱却更多了。

　　5. The star retailers’ biggest edge, though, comes from e-commerce. Walmart in particular upped its e-game just in time to benefit from a pandemic surge in online shopping. A survey of American shoppers by McKinsey, a consultancy, found that kerbside pick-up has nearly doubled from pre-covid levels, and in-store “click and collect” sales have shot up by nearly 50% from last year. Walmart’s digital sales leapt by nearly 80% in the latest quarter, year on year, to $10bn. That is still less than 8% of revenues—but more than in the whole of 2016, according to Morgan Stanley. The fast-approaching holiday shopping season is likely to bring even more online sales than usual, says Mr Gutman.

　　这些明星零售企业的优势还是来自电子商务。尤其是沃尔玛，它及时升级了其电子游戏，导致其在疫情期间的网络购物中获益颇多。麦肯锡咨询公司对美国消费者的一项调查发现，街道提货比新冠之前几乎翻了一番，而店内“点击提货”的销售额比去年上升了近50%。沃尔玛的数字销售额在最近一个季度同比增长了近80%，达到100亿美元。摩根士丹利称，这仍不到总收入的8%，但已经超过了2016年的全年水平。Gutman表示，快速临近的假日购物季可能会带动比以往更多的在线销售。

　　6. By doubling down on digital, Walmart is taking on Amazon’s e-emporium. The tech giant is not taking this lying down. On November 17th it launched its long-awaited digital pharmacy. This threatens not just chemists such as Walgreens and CVS but also Walmart, which sells prescription drugs in over 4,000 of its big-box stores. When it comes to e-commerce, Mr Furner’s humility is fully justified.

　　通过加大在数字领域的投入，沃尔玛如今正在挑战亚马逊电子商城的地位，但是，沃尔玛也没有就此罢休。11月17日，亚马逊推出了数字药房服务。这不仅对沃尔格林和CVS等药店造成威胁，也对沃尔玛带来了一些挑战。沃尔玛在其4000多家大型药店销售处方药。在电子商务方面，弗纳保持谦逊是对的。