By Matt Grossman
$Home Depot(HD.US)$ posted greater sales and earnings year over year in the latest quarter, adding to a surge in the company's growth during the Covid-19 pandemic that has lifted the company to its first year of sales above $150 billion.
The Atlanta-based home-improvement retailer saw its sales for the three months through January grow by 11% to $35.72 billion, from $32.26 billion a year earlier.
Comparable sales, a metric that adjusts for store openings and closings, increased by 8.1%. That trend, though flatter than the company's growth earlier in the pandemic, shows Home Depot is still building on gains stemming from a flood of home-improvement activity.
Between mid-2020 and mid-2021, the retailer posted four straight quarters of comparable sales growth above 20%, fueled by consumers' surging demand for home-improvement goods as the public-health crisis's social disruptions left people spending more time in their houses.
That environment helped Home Depot reach more than $150 billion in annual sales for the first time in its most recent fiscal year through January, Home Depot said Tuesday.
The demand fueling the company's sales growth has evolved as the pandemic progresses. The first phase of the crisis often brought in customers eager to buy home necessities and to tackle do-it-yourself projects around the house. As the pandemic's acute early phases subsided, Home Depot saw sales to professional contractors grow, with homeowners becoming more comfortable bringing workers into their homes again.
Home Depot's net earnings in the latest quarter were $3.35 billion, or $3.21 a share, up from $2.65 a share 12 months earlier.
Wall Street analysts surveyed by FactSet had been forecasting earnings of $3.18 a share on sales of $34.88 billion.
Home Depot also said on Tuesday it will raise its dividend by 15%, to $7.60 annually. Shares rose slightly in premarket trading. Entering Tuesday, the stock is up 24% over the past 12 months.
The January-ending quarter marked Home Depot's last full earnings period with Craig Menear as its chief executive. Ted Decker, the company's chief operating officer, will become CEO next week, Home Depot said in January. Mr. Menear, who has been CEO since 2014, will remain Home Depot's chairman.