By Anthony Harrup

MEXICO CITY--Wal-Mart de Mexico SAB, Mexico's biggest retailer by sales, will increase its capital expenditures by a third this year to around $1.1 billion, the company said Thursday.

The unit of Bentonville, Ark.-based Walmart Inc., which runs close to 3,500 stores in Mexico and Central America, plans to invest 22.2 billion Mexican pesos ($1.1 billion), compared with 16.7 billion pesos in 2020.

Walmex, as the unit is known, said 25% of the capital expenditures will be for new stores, 40% for remodeling and maintenance of existing stores, 25% for logistics and the remaining 10% for ecommerce and technology.

Store openings will be focused on the company's no-frills Bodega format, with new stores expected to contribute between 1.2 and 1.5 percentage points to overall sales growth.

Walmex's sales rose 8.5% in 2020 to 701.7 billion pesos. Growth slowed after a strong first quarter when shoppers stocked up on basic goods ahead of confinement measures in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

In the fourth quarter, revenue rose 5.5% from the year-earlier period to 196 billion pesos. Net profit increased 12% to 12.6 billion pesos, and earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, a measure of profitability, rose 8.5% to 22.3 billion pesos.

In Mexico, same-store sales, which exclude stores opened in the past year, increased 4.9%, while ecommerce sales almost tripled from a year before and accounted for 5.1% of total sales. In Central America, fourth-quarter same-store sales fell 2%, with growth in Nicaragua and Guatemala offset by declines in El Salvador, Honduras and Costa Rica.

Write to Anthony Harrup at anthony.harrup@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

02-18-21 1304ET