Wal-Mart, which owns Asda in Britain, gave warning today that its full-year profits would not meet previous targets as growing economic pressures were causing customers to run out of money before the end of the month.

The American supermarket chain, which serves 127 million customers every week, reported an 8.8 per cent rise in second-quarter revenues to $91.9 billion (£45.4 billion) and profits up 4.4 per cent to $3.1 billion for the three months to July 31, 2007.

Like-for-like sales from Wal-Mart stores during the quarter rose by 1.2 per cent, behind Sam's Club, the company's cash-and-carry operation, where comparable sales increased by 5.9 per cent.

Total second quarter like-for-like sales, which strip out revenue from new stores opened in the period, increased by 1.9 per cent.

Over the first six months of the year, Wal-Mart's like-for-like sales rose by only 0.6 per cent and total turnover increased by 1.3 per cent.

Wal-Mart has cut its forecast for the third quarter and reduced its full-year earnings guidance from between $3.15 and $3.23 a share to $3.05 and $3.13.

Lee Scott, the president and chief executive of Wal-Mart, said that higher fuel prices, interest rates, utility costs and "more financial pressure" were hurting its sales and affecting customer spending.

He said: "It is no secret that many customers are running out of money by the end of the month."

Commenting on Wal-Mart's second-quarter figures, Mr Scott said: "Although some people will report that Wal-Mart has had record sales and earnings, our underlying operating performance this quarter is not what we expect of ourselves, and not what our shareholders expect of us."

The company's profit margin has been hurt by higher sales of cut-price goods against lower trading in high-margin merchandise such as clothing.

Wal-Mart does not report Asda’s figures separately but said that like-for-like sales were in the “mid-single digits”.

The company also announced yesterday that Angela Spindler, the global managing director of its George clothing line, had left Asda.

Ms Spindler, an Asda employee for almost ten years, recently resigned "to spend more time with her family".

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