Key Takeaways
- Lululemon shares fell sharply Friday as the company's profit forecasts disappointed.
- The apparel maker forecast second-quarter sales and profits below estimates, and cut its full-year profit projections.
- The company's CEO said customers are remaining cautious, while its CFO said it planned to raise prices on certain products to mitigate the impact of tariffs.
Shares of Lululemon Athletica (LULU) sank 20% Friday after the apparel maker's second-quarter outlook came in below estimates, and the company also cut its full-year profit forecast.
Lululemon projects second-quarter revenue o🌳f $2.54 billion t෴o $2.56 billion and earnings per share from $2.85 to $2.90, each below the analyst consensus compiled by Visible Alpha of $2.57 billion and $3.28.
The athletic apparel brand still expects $11.15 billion to $11.30 billion in full-year sales, but lowered its EPS forecast to a range of $14.58 to $14.78, down from $14.95 to $15.15 previously. Responding to the lowered profit expectation, analysts from JPMorgan and UBS each lowered their price targets for the stock to $303 and $290, respectively, from $389 and $330.
CEO Says Consumers Are Cautious, CFO Expects Price Incre🎐ases to Handle Tariffs
CEO Calvin McDonald said customers have "responded well to the product innovations" the company has introduced, as it looks to fix the "newness problem" it has described previously. However, McDonald said in Lululemon's earnings call that U.S. consumers "remain cautious right now, and they are being very intentional about their buying decisions," per an AlphaSense transcript.
"We are planning to take strategic price increases, looking item by item across our assortment as we typically do, and it will be price increases on a small portion of our assortment, and they will be modest in nature," CFO Meghan Frank said regarding Lululemon's plans for mitigating the impact of tariffs. She added that the company is also planning to make some changes to its supply chain that will have more of an impact on the second half of the year.
First-quarter 🌳top- and bottom-line results came in as analysts expected at $2.37 billion in sales and $2.60 EPS, but comparable sales growth of 1% fell well short of the 4.56% growth that analysts had expected.
Entering the day, Lululemon shares were down about 14% since the start of the year. That's now closer to 30%.
This article has been updated since it was first published to reflect new share price information.