ULTA Beauty continues to dazzle shoppers

ULTA Beauty is that rare breed of retailer capable of exceeding ever loftier growth expectations and it did so again with the release of first quarter results on May 28.

ULTA reported that net sales increased 21.6% to $868.1 million from $713.8 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2014. Same store sales increased 11.4% compared to an increase of 8.7% in the first quarter of fiscal 2014. The 11.4% same store sales increase was driven by 7.2% growth in transactions and 4.2% growth in average ticket.

“The ULTA Beauty team delivered an excellent start to 2015, with better than expected sales and earnings growth in the first quarter,” said Mary Dillon, CEO. “We achieved our best comparable sales growth since 2011, driven by strong traffic growth in both retail and e-commerce, market share gains across all categories, and continued successful execution of our marketing strategies. We also drove significant operating margin expansion, with a healthy balance of product margin improvement and marketing and payroll expense leverage.”

E-commerce sales at ULTA.com grew 49.8% to $44.0 million from $29.4 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2014, representing 170 basis points of the total company comparable store sales increase of 11.4%; Net income increased 34.0% to $66.9 million compared to $50.0 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2014. Income per diluted share increased 35.1% to $1.04 compared to $0.77 in the first quarter of fiscal 2014.

For the second quarter of fiscal 2015, the company expects net sales in the range of $854 million to $868 million, compared to actual net sales of $734.2 million in the second quarter of fiscal 2014. Same store sales for the second quarter of 2015, including e-commerce sales, are expected to increase 7% to 9%.

As of May 2, ULTA Beauty operates 797 retail stores across 48 states.