Home Depot Inc. HD +1.91% said its fiscal first-quarter sales and earnings grew despite impacts from lingering winter weather.
The results, however, fell below analysts’ expectations.
Home Depot boosted its per-share earnings outlook for the year to $4.42 from $4.38, reflecting, in part, the retailer’s sale of part of its HD Supply Holdings Inc.HDS -2.38% stake. Otherwise, it maintained its guidance.
The company also said it intends to buy back an additional $3.75 billion in stock over the rest of the year.
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Home Depot and rival Lowe’s LOW -0.07% Cos.—which is scheduled to report quarterly results Wednesday—have generally benefited from improvement in the housing market, although there were concerns that the harsher winter weather that gripped much of the U.S. would coax home and property owners to put repairs and improvements on hold. The cold lingered longer than usual, weighing on sales, the company said.
“The first quarter was impacted by a slow start to the spring selling season,” Chairman and Chief Executive Frank Blake said. “But we had solid results in non-weather impacted markets and expect our sales for the year to grow in line with the guidance we previously provided.”
Same-store sales rose 2.6% in the period ended May 4, while U.S. stores posted 3.3% in growth.
Home Depot said its profit for the quarter was $1.38 billion, or $1 a share, up from $1.23 billion, or 83 cents a share, a year earlier. The most recent period included an earnings benefit of 4 cents a share from the HD Supply share sale. Excluding that, the company had per-share earnings of 96 cents.
Revenue rose 2.9% to $19.69 billion.
Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had projected per-share earnings of 99 cents and revenue of $19.95 billion.
Gross margin widened slightly to 35% from 34.9%.
Average ticket rose less than 1%, while the number of customer transactions grew 2.2% in the period.
Date: May 20, 2014