Home Depot saw slower growth in the most recent quarter compared with the same period last year.
Photo: Adolphe Pierre-Louis/Journal/Zuma Press
Sales for Home Depot Inc. HD 1.13% continued their upward trend in the latest quarter, but the company’s year-over-year growth rate slowed against the comparison to last summer, when the coronavirus pandemic began driving higher home-improvement spending.
The Atlanta-based retailer logged sales of $41.12 billion for the three months through Aug. 1, a rise from $38.05 billion in the same quarter in 2020. The number of customer transactions fell about 6%, but Home Depot made up that ground through a larger average transaction size.
Comparable sales in the quarter grew by 4.5%, including a 3.4% increase in the U.S. That marked slower growth compared with last year, when lockdowns, financial stimulus and a red-hot residential housing market were combining to give home-improvement spending a dramatic boost. In each of the previous four quarters, the company’s comparable sales growth exceeded 20%.
Home Depot’s profit was $4.81 billion, up from $4.33 billion in the year-ago quarter. On a per-share basis, its earnings were $4.53. Analysts were forecasting earnings of $4.36 a share, according to FactSet.
Shares of the company declined about 4.2% in premarket trading Tuesday.
Write to Matt Grossman at [email protected]
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