Lululemon Athletica Inc. upgraded its net revenue and earnings guidance for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2014 ahead of its presentation at the ICR XChange investor conference on Monday.
For the fourth quarter ending Feb. 1, Lululemon now anticipates that net revenue will be in the range of $595 million to $600 million based on a total comparable sales increase between 6-to-7 percent on a constant dollar basis. This compares to the company's previous guidance of net revenue in the range of $570 million to $585 million for the fourth quarter based on a total comparable sales increase in the low single digits on a constant dollar basis. The company also now expects diluted earnings per share will be in the range of $0.71 to $0.73 compared with the previous forecast of $0.65 to $0.69. EPS guidance continues to assume 142.6 million diluted weighted-average shares outstanding and a 30.2 percent tax rate.
"Backed by improving trends and strong holiday results, we are entering 2015 in very good shape," said CEO Laurent Potdevin. "Our guests are responding positively to both the womens and mens product assortment, and with the build-out of our senior leadership team near completion, I feel confident in our ability to execute on our growth strategies.
"Building on our current momentum, our team is relentless in driving the business forward," he continued. "With that, over the coming year, we will complete the critical foundational business improvements already underway while also making disciplined, strategic investments in our brand, product, guest experience and international expansion efforts, with the expectation that we will begin to see operating margin leverage in 2016."
