Urban Outfitters posts commanding quarterly revenue increase, crosses record $1billion

By

Arati Menon

Published
Feb 9, 2018

Urban Outfitters Inc, comprising brands like Anthropologie and Free People, has just announced record net sales for the quarter ending January 2018. Company sales for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2018 increased 5.7 percent over the same period last year, to $1.09 billion.

This marks two consecutive quarters of healthy growth for the Philadelphia-headquartered lifestyle specialty retailer, after a disappointing sales and profits decline in the first two quarters of 2017.

Over the last year, company management has often alluded to the challenges it was facing in physical retail and the difficulties associated with growing store sales.

That hasn’t been the case this quarter.
 
Positive performance was driven by a 4 percent comparable retail sales growth generated by the group's Free People (+8 percent) and Anthropologie (+5 percent) labels. The group’s leading brand, Urban Outfitters, was marginally on the up (+2 percent).
 
"Positive 'comps' were driven primarily by stronger apparel sales with January registering particularly powerful year-over-year results," said Richard A. Hayne, Chief Executive Officer. Apparel is a mainstay of the company’s product offering.

During the year ended January 31, 2018, the company closed 11 store locations and opened a total of 18 new locations, including stores in Vienna, Dusseldorf and Stockholm. Flagships in both Paris and Milan are underway for this year.  

The company also operates a strong wholesale segment under the Free People and Anthropologie brands. Wholesale segment net sales increased 6.3%.  

For the year ended January 31, 2018, total company net sales increased to $3.6 billion or 2.0% over the prior year. The company has preliminarily reported that while wholesale sales increased 9.5 percent, comp retail sales were flat.

The Company will release fourth quarter and fiscal year 2018 earnings results on March 6, 2018.