Shares of Dollar General Corporation (NYSE: DG) were down slightly on Wednesday. The stock has dropped 11% year-to-date. The discount retailer is scheduled to report its fourth quarter 2022 earnings results on Thursday, March 16 and it had provided certain preliminary results last month. Here are a few points to note ahead of the upcoming report:
Revenue
Analysts are projecting revenue of $10.24 billion for Dollar General in Q4 2022, which would reflect an increase of 18% from the prior-year period. In the third quarter of 2022, net sales increased 11% to $9.5 billion, driven by positive sales contributions from new stores and growth in same-store sales.
Same-store sales
In February, Dollar General stated that despite continued market share gains in sales of both consumable and non-consumable products, same-store sales for Q4 increased only 5.7% versus the company’s expectation of approx. 6-7% growth.
The company believes that the lower-than-expected results were mainly due to lower-than-anticipated sales and higher-than-anticipated inventory damages, both of which were impacted by Winter Storm Elliott in Q4. Although same-store sales of 6.7% and 6.5% for November and January respectively, came within the expected guidance range for Q4, December’s same-store sales fell short at 4.5% believed to be mainly due to the storm.
Earnings
Dollar General now expects EPS to range between $2.91-2.96 in Q4 compared to its previous expectation of $3.15-3.30. This compares to EPS of $2.57 reported in Q4 2021. In Q3 2022, EPS increased 12% year-over-year to $2.33.
Prelim FY2023 guidance
For fiscal year 2023, Dollar General currently expects same-store sales growth of 3-3.5% and EPS growth of 4-6%.
Competition
Last week, DG’s competitor Dollar Tree (NASDAQ: DLTR) reported its fourth quarter 2022 earnings results, which surpassed expectations. Its net sales rose 9% to $7.7 billion while same-store sales grew 7.4%. EPS increased 1.5% to $2.04.
Also read: Dollar Tree (DLTR): A look at the discount retailer’s expectations for the near term