HD Home Depot Inc

By Dave Sebastian 

Home Depot Inc. posted higher profit for the fourth quarter and beat same-store-sales expectations, though overall sales declined as it booked one less week compared with the prior year.

The home-improvement retailer on Tuesday posted net income of $2.48 billion, or $2.28 a share, compared with $2.34 billion, or $2.09 a share, in the comparable quarter a year before. Analysts polled by FactSet had expected $2.10 a share.

The Atlanta-based company said sales for the quarter ended Feb. 2 declined 2.7% to $25.78 billion. Analysts were expecting sales of $25.76 billion. The company said an extra week of operations in the comparable period in 2018 added about $1.7 billion in sales.

Same-store sales, or those at physical and online locations that had been open for more than a year, were up 5.2% for the period, ahead of the 4.7% analysts were looking for. U.S. same-store sales rose 5.3%.

Home Depot, which operates about 2,300 stores, missed same-store sales expectations for the previous four fiscal quarters, according to FactSet.

The number of customer transactions was down 6.4% from a year before, while the average amount each customer spent rose 4.1%. Sales per retail square foot rose 2.8%.

Operating expenses fell 5.6% to $5.33 billion for the quarter.

The company on Tuesday also raised its quarterly dividend by 10% to $1.50 a share, payable March 26 to shareholders as of March 12.

Home Depot reaffirmed its financial outlook for fiscal 2020. It guided per-share earnings growth of about 2% to $10.45 on sales growth of about 3.5% to 4% and same-store sales growth of about 3.5% to 4%. The retailer expects to open six new stores during the year.

Shares rose 2.7% in premarket trading.

Write to Dave Sebastian at dave.sebastian@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 25, 2020 06:58 ET (11:58 GMT)

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