Target: quarterly profit up on strong holiday sales

(CercleFinance.com) - Target posted quarterly profit that is slightly above the consensus on Tuesday, helped by strong comparable sales growth and gains in market-share.


The US discount retailer said net income was 799 million dollars, or 1.53 dollar per share, in the fourth quarter to 2 February, compared with 1.1 billion dollars, or 2.01 dollars per share, a year earlier.

Analysts, on average, were expecting earnings of 1.52 dollar.

Sales were flat at 23.7 billion dollars, although fourth quarter comparable sales grew 5.3% on traffic growth of 4.5%.

Full-year comparable sales grew 5% - the group's strongest performance since 2005, Target said.

For the first quarter of the new fiscal year, Target said it expects low-to-mid single digit growth in comparable sales.

The shares were up 6.6% in pre-market trading.

Copyright (c) 2019 CercleFinance.com. All rights reserved.