The logo of a Lululemon store in New York on August 22, 2024.
Yuki Iwamura | Bloomberg | Getty Images
lululemon The company on Monday raised fourth-quarter profit and revenue guidance after seeing a strong response from consumers during the all-important holiday season.
The sportswear company now expects sales to grow 11% to 12% to $3.56 billion to $3.58 billion, up from a previous range of $3.48 billion to $3.51 billion.
Excluding the company’s additional fiscal week in the fourth quarter of 2024, Lululemon expects sales to grow 6% to 7%.
The company also raised its profit forecast. Lululemon now forecasts fourth-quarter earnings per share of $5.81 to $5.85, compared with the previous forecast of $5.56 to $5.64. The company expects gross profit margin to grow by 0.3 percentage points, after previously forecasting a decline of 0.2 to 0.3 percentage points.
Shares were up about 4% in premarket trading.
“Our guests responded well to our product offerings during the holidays, allowing us to increase our fourth-quarter guidance,” Treasurer Megan Frank said in a statement.
Lululemon released its guidance ahead of the annual ICR conference in Orlando, where some of the nation’s best-known retailers are expected to report holiday results in advance and meet with investors and analysts about their results. The conference, which brings together Wall Street’s largest banks, law firms, private equity firms and investors, is known to set the tone for dealmaking and retail business performance at the start of the year.
lululemon Give prudent holiday guidance when it reports fiscal third-quarter earnings in December. The company’s outlook is largely in line with expectations, but Frank told analysts that executives are planning the business “cautiously” given the current situation. Holiday shopping season shortened and “uncertain macro environment.”
“While we feel good about the start of the holiday season, we still have significant volumes ahead of us in the weeks ahead,” CEO Calvin McDonald added at the time. “Given the shorter holiday shopping season, we “Continue to be thoughtful in our overall planning for the fourth quarter.”
Overall, the holiday shopping season is not expected to see the usual sales blowout in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. The National Retail Federation said sales are expected to be 2.5% and 3.5%. When inflation is taken into account, real growth is Expected to be minimal.
Still, some early data suggests the holidays could be a better Better than expected.
U.S. holiday quarter retail sales, excluding auto sales, Annual increase of 3.8% The campaign ran between Nov. 1 and Dec. 24, according to Mastercard’s SpendingPulse, which measures in-store and online sales across various payment types.
