Walmart Inc. earnings call

… and clubs. Customers and members are also shopping deeper into our catalog as 3P Marketplace sales growth in the U.S. reached the highest level in two and a half years. In addition, our advertising business had one of its best quarters, growing 37% globally. First quarter adjusted operating income growth in constant currency of approximately 5% was in line with our guidance despite higher than anticipated fuel costs. We absorbed approximately $175 million or about 250 basis points of operating income growth from higher than planned fuel costs in our global distribution and fulfillment operations. We continue to play offense. Despite the short-term pressure on profits, we're confident this was the right approach to reinforce customer trust and support share gains over the long term. We're always focused on providing low prices for customers. EDLP is core to who we are. That said, these are real impacts to cost of goods sold for us and our suppliers, and if the current elevated cost environment persists, we'd expect somewhat higher retail price inflation in Q2 and the second half of the year. Importantly, we're reiterating our original full-year guidance that we provided in …

… in the member value proposition at Sam's supported the membership fee increase that became effective on May 1st. Lastly, we're making progress on improving merchandise category mix, particularly in Walmart US. Q1 marked the first time in 18 quarters that merchandise mix contributed favorably to Walmart US gross margin expansion of 29 basis points. This reflects broad-based improvement in general merchandise sales with growth up mid-single digits for the quarter. In Q1, we saw the highest level of general merchandise share gains in five years. We're continuing to lean into rollbacks and seasonal value programs to reinforce our price leadership, and we're seeing a strong response from customers through increased unit volumes. We have approximately 7,200 rollbacks across our assortment, which is up more than 20% versus last year. Now I'll discuss guidance. While there are certainly pressures on the consumer, let me reiterate, our business is strong. We are executing on the important strategic initiatives that are critical to our future sales and earnings growth. Our delivery speed and capabilities continue to get faster and reach more customers and members. And our value …

… accelerating by using our unique assets, stores and clubs, DCs and FCs, and last-mile delivery networks to get orders to customers faster and more efficiently. In the U.S., sales utilizing store-fulfilled delivery have more than doubled over the past two years. Over 36% of these orders were delivered in under three hours in Q1, an improvement of 800 basis points over the past two years, and our under one-hour and under 30-minute solutions are growing the fastest. We can now reach approximately 60% of the US population in 30 minutes or less. And customer satisfaction with our delivery offering reached record highs. In China, e-commerce grew over 30% as we use our cloud network to make deliveries within minutes. Flipkart delivered orders in less than 13 minutes on average across more than 30 cities in India. and Sam's Club U.S. Club Fulfilled Delivery Sales grew more than 90% in Q1. We're also encouraged by the performance of our U.S. marketplace, with nearly 50% net sales growth, aided by increased engagement with higher-income households. Marketplace is an area that we invested in last year, and the momentum is building. General merchandise categories performed especially well …