Macy's posts 3Q earnings, sales beat on strong digital performance
Macy’s said Wednesday its sales and profit, as well as same-store sales, surged in the third quarter on both strong digital revenue and improved brick-and-mortar performance.
The company, which also boosted its earnings per share (EPS) outlook by 15 cents, reported net sales of $5.4 billion, up from $5.28 billion in the year-earlier quarter, and EPS of 27 cents, up from 21 cents.
Adjusted net income attributable to Macy's shareholders climbed to $83 million from $65 million.
Sales from stores that have been open at least one year rose 3.1 percent on an owned basis and 3.3 percent on an owned-and-licensed basis. The August-to-October period marked the fourth straight quarter of comparable-store sales improvement.
"Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s and Bluemercury all performed well,” CEO Jeff Gennette said in a statement. “Our strategic initiatives are gaining momentum and delivering results. Another double-digit quarter from our digital business and a strong stores performance combined to help us exceed expectations. We continue to see an improved trend in brick and mortar across the fleet with particularly strong results from our Growth50 stores.”
The company hiked its comparable-sales outlook for fiscal 2018 to a gain of 2.3 percent to 2.5 percent from a range of 2.1 percent to 2.5 percent. Full-year EPS is now expected to be $4.10 to $4.30 from a previous range of $3.95 to $4.15.
Asset sales for the three months ended Nov. 3 declined to $42 million pretax, or $31 million after tax, in the third quarter compared to $65 million pretax, or $40 million after tax, in the third quarter of 2017.
Macy's has approximately 130,000 employees and operates about 690 department stores in 44 states, Puerto Rico, Guam and Washington, D.C.