Home Depot sales and earnings climb in Q1

Atlanta The world's largest home improvement retailer posted its second consecutive quarterly comp-store increase -- this one of 4.8% -- in another sign of a home-improvement recovery. The comp-store performance was the best since fourth quarter 2005.

"Our solid start to the year was driven by great performance in seasonal categories and strong growth in customer transactions," said Frank Blake, chairman and CEO of the Atlanta-based home improvement giant. "I want to thank our associates for their hard work and dedication, as our customer service scores also showed marked year-over-year improvement. It is their efforts that enabled us to deliver these results."

The company's first-quarter earnings increased 41.1% to $725 million, compared with $514 million in the same quarter last year. Net sales increased 4.3% to $16.9 billion.

Home Depot rival Lowe's posted a comp-store sales increase of 2.4%, and sales increase of 4.7% in its first quarter report Monday.

Based on its year-to-date performance, Home Depot updated its fiscal 2010 guidance and now expects sales to be up approximately 3.5% for the year.

As of May 2, the company operated a total of 2,244 retail stores, including 1,976 Home Depot stores in the United States.