Ulta Beauty Falls As Demand Wanes

Ulta Beauty (ULTA:US) stock was offered lower on Friday after the cosmetics company reported weaker-than-expected same-store sales for the first quarter.

Ulta reported a profit per share of $6.88 on revenue of $2.63 billion, which compares to the analyst consensus for earnings of $6.30 per share on revenue of $6.82 billion. Comparable sales rose 9.3% on top of the 18% increase reported for the same period last year.

“Store traffic remained healthy, member growth showed continued strength, we delivered growth across key categories, and we strengthened engagement with the Ulta Beauty brand,” said Dave Kimbell, chief executive officer. 

“While we expect the operating environment to continue evolving, we remain confident in the resilience of the beauty category and in our ability to drive share and profitable growth with our proven business model, a diverse, best-in-class assortment, an industry-leading loyalty program, and our world-class team.”

The company said it had $636.4 million in cash and cash equivalents at the end of the first quarter. It spent $285.8 million to repurchase its shares in Q1 while $816.5 million still remains available under the $2.0 billion share repurchase program announced in March 2022.

Although Ulta raised its full-year sales forecast to the range of $11 to $11.1 billion, it still came short of analyst expectations for revenue of $11.09 billion.

The forecast for same-store sales rising 4% to 5% on a YoY basis is reaffirmed. Analysts were looking for a 5.3% gain.

Congress members Lois Frankel, Ro Khanna, and Dan Sullivan were all selling Ulta Beauty shares this year. 

Ulta Beauty stock trades 37.4% higher in the past 12 months, through Thursday’s close.