Macy’s reveals improved figures

The company have exceeded expectations from analysts for the final 2014 quarter but have not met expectations for the New Year.

Macy’s expects its 2015 fiscal earnings to be between R4.70 and $4.80 per share, with analysts expecting it to reach $4.83 per share.

The company’s stock saw a slide of 2% after the release of its results, prior to the opening of the markets.

Macy’s is battling with the move of consumers to research and purchase on their mobile devices before heading for the stores.  In a bid to get in line with this trend, it launched new shopping apps prior to the holiday season and has tested same-day delivery options on purchases from Macys.com and Bloomingdales.com.  The company has announced changes to its executive structure in a bid to boost future growth.  It is expecting its 2014 fiscal year profits to exceed expectations.

The company earned $793m or R2.26 per share during the fourth quarter, compared with $811m or R2.16 per share during the previous year.  The adjusted results indicated $2.44 per share, which excludes the charges for store closures, and marketing and merchandising restructuring.  This surpassed the analyst forecast of $2.39 per share.

Macy’s has also seen an increase of almost 2% in revenue to reach $9.36bn, which is slightly short of the expectation of analysts at $9.4bn.

Its revenues for stores that have been open for at least 12 months, including beauty departments, increased by 2.5% during the quarter.  Sales increased by 2%.  These figures are indicative of the health of the chain as they do not include potentially distorted figures that result from recent store openings and closures.