Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, reported January sales that exceeded its projection and said it will stop giving a monthly forecast, citing difficulty in predicting consumer behavior.

Revenue from U.S. stores open at least a year advanced 2.1 percent last month as discounted groceries and $4 medicines brought in more customers, the Bentonville, Arkansas-based company said today in a statement. That beat Wal-Mart’s forecast for no change to a 2 percent increase.

The company said it is switching to quarterly forecasts and anticipates comparable-store sales in the U.S. will rise 1 percent to 3 percent in the period from Jan. 31 through May 1. Last month, Wal-Mart reduced prices on hamburger buns, Hormel Foods Corp. chili with beans and Sony Corp. flat-panel televisions to grab customers eating and entertaining more at home.

“Wal-Mart sees tremendous volatility month to month, and it may face rough sledding ahead,” Howard Davidowitz, chairman of retail-consulting and investment-banking firm Davidowitz & Associates Inc. in New York, said in a telephone interview today.

Wal-Mart advanced $2.14, or 4.6 percent, to $48.56 at 4 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock has declined 13 percent this year. Its 2008 advance of 18 percent outpaced the other 29 Dow Jones Industrial Average stocks.

Football Discounts

The last week of January, Wal-Mart discounted flat-panel TVs, Kraft Foods Inc.’s DiGiorno frozen pizzas and PepsiCo Inc. soft drinks to lift sales before the Super Bowl, the Feb. 1 National Football League title game in which the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Arizona Cardinals. U.S. companies slashed an estimated 522,000 jobs in January, threatening to extend the longest recession in a quarter of a century.

“Because our value proposition is so relevant to our customers and members, we believe our underlying business around the world will remain very healthy,” Wal-Mart Chief Financial officer Tom Schoewe said in the statement.

The decision to abandon the monthly forecasts is one of Wal- Mart’s first announcements since Mike Duke took over as chief executive officer Feb. 1.

Wal-Mart disappointed investors last month when it reported same-store U.S. sales rose 1.7 percent in December. The company had forecast weeks earlier that it expected sales to advance at the “high end” of its prior guidance of 1 percent to 3 percent.

By sales, the retailer has outpaced Target Corp., which sells fewer groceries and generates a larger percentage of revenue from clothes and other discretionary merchandise. Target said today that fourth-quarter earnings were probably “somewhat lower” than the median First Call analyst estimate of 86 cents a share.

To contact the reporter on this story: Chris Burritt in Greensboro, North Carolina, at 1348 or cburritt@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: February 5, 2009 16:13 EST