CHICAGO (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said on Saturday that sales at its U.S. stores reached a record $1.52 billion on the day after Thanksgiving, up from $1.43 billion on the same day a year earlier.
Top-selling categories were home electronics, small appliances and toys, Wal-Mart said in a statement.
The world's largest retailer by revenues had given a cautious outlook for the holiday shopping season, saying consumer spending was not improving as much as some analysts had hoped.
Last year, many retailers reported very strong after-Thanksgiving sales, but demand tapered off after that, and the holiday season generated the smallest sales gain in more than 30 years.
Gearing up for the holidays
On Friday, the biggest reailers, including Wal-Mart, Target, J.C. Penny and Best Buy, scheduled early openings of 6 a.m. local time.
Black Friday" gets its name from the hope that on that day merchants' financial statements will move out of the red and into the black.
The National Retail Federation (NRF), the industry's largest trade group, expects industry sales for the key November and December shopping period to grow 5.7 percent, the largest rise since 1999, to $217.4 billion.
Sales last year grew just 2.2 percent for the same period, the weakest performance in more than a decade. But despite the NRF's bullish outlook, some industry watchers are cautious.
The consensus among analysts is that holiday spending this year will be solid, if not spectacular, averaging a smaller 4 percent growth.
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