Sales for the fourth quarter at The Home Depot Inc. jumped 15.9 percent to reach $19.5 billion, the company said yesterday. Comparable-store sales rose 5.5 percent during the same period.
The multichannel home improvement merchant also said diluted earnings per share rose 27.7 percent to a record $0.60 on net earnings of $1.3 billion during the fourth quarter. In comparison, diluted earnings per share were $0.47 on net earnings of $1 billion during the same fiscal period in 2004.
Sales for the full year totaled $81.5 billion, an 11.5 percent increase. Same-store sales for the year grew 3.8 percent.
Home Depot’s average ticket grew to a record $57.98 for fiscal year 2005, an increase of 5.6 percent over the prior year. For the fourth quarter, the average ticket was $57.20, an increase of 5.7 percent. In addition, several technology initiatives were introduced or completed in 2005, including: the rollout of back-end scanned receiving to all U.S. and Canadian stores; the continued installation of self-checkout registers, which are now in 1,272 stores; centralized automated replenishment grew to 20 percent of store sales, and the implementation of a special order services initiative pilot in 285 stores and at the Tampa call center.
Chantal Todé covers catalog and retail news and BTB marketing for DM News and DM News.com. To keep up with the latest developments in these areas, subscribe to our daily and weekly e-mail newsletters by visiting www.dmnews.com/newsletters
