Home Depot shines whilst many US retailers falter

The Home Depot®, the world's largest home improvement retailer, today reported sales of $23.9 billion for the first quarter of fiscal 2017, a 4.9% increase from the first quarter of fiscal 2016. Comparable store sales for the first quarter of fiscal 2017 were positive 5.5%  and comparable sales for U.S. stores were positive 6.0%.

Net earnings for the first quarter of fiscal 2017 were $2.0 billion, or $1.67 per diluted share, compared with net earnings of $1.8 billion, or $1.44 per diluted share, in the same period of fiscal 2016. For the first quarter of fiscal 2017, diluted earnings per share increased 16.0 percent from the same period in the prior year.

Download the Home Depot Q1 Performance Infographic.

“We were pleased with our results as they reflected broad-based growth across our interconnected platform and all geographies,” said Craig Menear, chairman, CEO and president. “This was made possible by our hard working store associates, merchants and supply chain teams and our continued dedication to customer service.”

Updated Fiscal 2017 Guidance

Based on its year-to-date performance, the Company reaffirmed its fiscal 2017 sales growth guidance and expects sales will be up approximately 4.6 percent and comp sales will be up approximately 4.6 percent. The Company also raised its diluted earnings-per-share growth guidance for the year and now expects diluted earnings-per-share growth after anticipated share repurchases of approximately 11.0 percent from fiscal 2016 to $7.15.

The Home Depot conducted a conference call today at 9 a.m. ET today to discuss information included in this news release and related matters. The conference call will be available in its entirety through a webcast and replay at ir.homedepot.com/events-and-presentations.

At the end of the first quarter, the Company operated a total of 2,281 retail stores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, 10 Canadian provinces and Mexico. The Company employs more than 400,000 associates. The Home Depot's stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: HD) and is included in the Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor's 500 index.

The performance of Home Depot is a shining light amid a growing number of US retail failures in 2017. Since the beginning of this year alone, according to Credit-Suisse, 2,880 US retail stores have closed, more than double the figure in 2016 and ahead of the number that closed in 2008.

Read 'Stores are closing at an epic pace'.

Source: Insight Team & Home Depot press release.

Download the full Home Depot press release here.

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