(By Balaseshan) Retailer Macy's Inc. (NYSE:M) reported a 15.8% increase in quarterly earnings on higher revenue, same-store sales, and lower costs. Results exceeded Street's expectations, sending its shares up 3.38% in premarket.
Earnings were $279 million or $0.67 per share for the second quarter, up from $241 million or $0.56 per share last year.
Sales increased 3% to $6.12 billion. On a same-store basis, Macy's second quarter sales were up 3.0%.
Analysts, on average, surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected a profit of $0.65 per share on revenue of $6.10 billion for the second quarter.
Online sales (macys.com and bloomingdales.com combined) jumped 36.1% on same-store sales growth of 1.7 percentage points in the second quarter. In the second quarter, the company opened two new Bloomingdale's Outlet stores.
Gross margin for the second quarter marginally rose to 41.9% from 41.8% in the previous year quarter.
Looking ahead into the fiscal 2012, the company increased its earnings guidance to range of $3.30 to $3.35 per share from previous forecast of $3.25 to $3.30 per share, while Street predicts $3.36 per share. Guidance for same-store sales in fiscal 2012 remains unchanged at an increase of about 3.7%.
The company repurchased about 10.6 million shares of its common stock for a total of about $374 million in the second quarter. At July 28, 2012, the company had balance authorization to repurchase up to about $764 million of its common stock. The company previously stated that it plans to repurchase at least $1 billion in shares in 2012 under its repurchase program.
M closed Tuesday's regular session at $37.00 The stock has been trading between $22.66 and $42.17 for the past 52 weeks.