lululemon athletica Q3 net revenue up 34% to $87 mn

16 Dec '08

4 min read

lululemon athletica inc announced financial results for the thirteen weeks ended November 2, 2008.

Net revenue increased 34% to $87.0 million from $64.9 million for the third quarter of fiscal 2007. Net revenue from corporate-owned stores was $77.6 million, an increase of 31% from $59.1 million for the third quarter of fiscal 2007, with comparable store sales increasing 4% on a constant-dollar basis compared to the third quarter of fiscal 2007.

Income from operations increased 7% to $13.1 million, or 15.0% of net revenue, compared to $12.2 million, or 18.9% of net revenue, in the third quarter of fiscal 2007.

Diluted earnings per share from continuing operations were $0.13 on net income of $8.8 million, compared to diluted earnings per share of $0.12 on net income of $7.9 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2007.

Diluted earnings per share in the third quarter of fiscal 2007 exclude a $0.01 loss per share associated with the discontinued operations resulting from the Company's closure of its four stores in Japan.

For the thirty-nine weeks ended November 2, 2008:

Net revenue increased 50% to $249.6 million compared to $165.9 million for the same period in fiscal 2007. Net revenue from corporate-owned stores increased 51% to $225.2 million compared to $148.8 million for the same period in fiscal 2007, with comparable store sales growth of 10% on a constant-dollar basis.

Income from operations increased 39% to $40.5 million, or 16.2% of net revenue, compared to $29.2 million, or 17.6% of net revenue, in the first nine months of fiscal 2007.

Diluted earnings per share from continuing operations were $0.42 on net income of $29.6 million, compared to diluted earnings per share of $0.24 on net income of $16.8 million for the same period in fiscal 2007. Diluted earnings per share were $0.40 for the first thirty-nine weeks of fiscal 2008 and $0.23 for the same period in fiscal 2007, after deducting the associated loss for discontinued operations in Japan.

Christine Day, lululemon's CEO stated: “While we are pleased that we met our earnings expectations in the third quarter, we recognize that we are operating in an increasingly difficult environment. During this current downturn we will operate our business prudently through careful inventory management, expense controls and conservative capital investments. We believe that our business model will prove resilient throughout this challenging time and we will emerge from these conditions with strong growth potential for our brand.”

Guidance
Based on the trends in the macro environment and the weaker Canadian dollar, which are both negatively impacting our business results, we are revising our outlook for the balance of the year. For fourth quarter 2008, we now anticipate reported net revenue to be in the range of $90 million to $95 million.

This is based on a comparable store sales decline in the low double digits on a constant-dollar basis and six new store openings during the quarter. We now expect diluted earnings per share for the fourth quarter of 2008 to be in the range of $0.15 to $0.17; incorporating a 34% tax rate and 70.7 million diluted weighted average shares outstanding.

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