Walmart is apparently focusing online --- and wanting to move on up.

Executives at the retail behemoth have said in a report by the Financial Times they will be ramping up their e-commerce business in an effort to attract high-income consumers --- who tend to do more of their shopping online --- along with the store chain's core of in-store shoppers, whose annual household incomes typically range between $30,000 and $60,000.

It's Walmart's latest challenge to the online-only Amazon, which reported $61 billion in worldwide sales last year. Shaping up as the biggest battlegrounds for the retailing rivalry are the United States, United Kingdom, China and Japan.

Walmart is on track to generate about $491 billion this year globally --- with online sales claiming $9 billion, or 2 percent of the total intake.

At its e-commerce headquarters in California this week, Walmart explained its ability to combine its digital offerings with brick-and-mortar shops gives it a obvious market advantage, since it has the to use its 4,000-plus stores countrywide as warehouses to fill online orders fast.

In a study released last year, Forrester Research found the number of consumers who had shopped online in the previous three months had risen steadily from 62 percent among households with income of less than $25,000 a year to 84 percent among those with more than $100,000.

Neil Ashe, chief executive of Walmart e-commerce, reaffirmed the 50-year-old retailer's dedication to low prices, noting "affluent people want value too."

Then again, Ashe said his company doesn't go head-to-head with Amazon everywhere, since Walmart has businesses in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Chile and Amazon does not. Also, selling media products is more important to the Amazon business model than to that of Walmart, he said.

"We won't get to the fringes. I don't think you're going to see a Piaget watch [which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars] on Walmart.com in the foreseeable future," said Ash.