Wall Street Journal
By Matt Jarzemsky
Williams-Sonoma Inc.'s profit jumped 62% for its fiscal first quarter and core results topped the company's expectations amid broad revenue growth.
The retailer raised its earnings forecast for the fiscal year by two cents a share to $2.13 to $2.21 a share. Williams-Sonoma increased its revenue forecast to between $3.66 billion and $3.73 billion. It earlier had forecast $3.64 billion to $3.72 billion. The kept its outlook for for the current quarter unchanged.
The housewares and home-decor seller has recorded robust earnings improvement for more than a year as sales rose at stores open at least a year. The company's direct-to-consumer business, which includes catalog and Web sales, has been a particular growth spot and continued its hot streak with a 13% revenue increase in the latest quarter, which ended May 1.
Williams-Sonoma on Thursday posted a profit of $31.6 million, or 29 cents a share, up from $19.5 million, or 18 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding items such as asset write-downs and early lease-termination charges for underperforming retail stores, earnings rose to 30 cents a share from 23 cents.
Revenue rose 7.4% to $770.8 million. Comparable brand revenue, which includes same-store and direct-to-consumer revenue, rose 9%, after increasing 18% a year earlier.
In March, the company forecast earnings of 26 cents to 28 cents a share on $745 million to $765 million in revenue.
Gross margin widened to 38.4% from 37.7% for the first quarter.
Comparable brand revenue rose 3.1% at the namesake brand.
Pottery Barn's comparable brand revenue climbed 7.9%, while Pottery Barn Kids recorded an 11% increase.
