Ulta Beauty, Inc (NASDAQ: ULTA) Q4 2025 Earnings Call dated Mar. 12, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Kiley Rawlins — Senior Vice President, Investor Relations
Kecia Steelman — President & Chief Executive Officer
Chris DelOrefice — Chief Financial Officer
Analysts:
Krisztina Katai — Analyst
Chris Horvers — Analyst
Sydney Wagner — Analyst
Oliver Chen — Analyst
Susan Anderson — Analyst
Kate McShane — Analyst
Mark Altschwager — Analyst
Olivia Tong — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Leila, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome you to Ulta Beauty’s Fourth Quarter and Fiscal 2025 Earnings Call. This conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]
At this time, I would like to turn the call over to Ms. Kiley Rawlins, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Ms. Rawlins, please proceed.
Kiley Rawlins — Senior Vice President, Investor Relations
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for a discussion of Ulta Beauty’s results for the fourth quarter and fiscal 2025.
Hosting our call today are Kecia Steelman, Chief Executive Officer; and Chris DelOrefice, Chief Financial Officer. During today’s webcast, a presentation is being displayed live and will be posted to our website at ulta.com/investor shortly after the webcast concludes.
As a reminder, today’s earnings release and the comments made by management during this call include forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from our expectations and projections. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, factors identified in the earnings release and in our most recent 10-K and 10-Q filings. The company undertakes no obligation to revise any forward-looking statements.
To allow us to accommodate as many questions as possible during the hour scheduled for this call, we respectfully ask that you limit your time to one question with no more than one follow-up question. And as always, the IR team will be available for any follow-up questions after the call.
Now I’ll turn the call over to Kecia. Kecia?
Kecia Steelman — President & Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Kiley, and good afternoon, everyone.
I’m excited today to be joined by Ulta Beauty’s new CFO, Chris DelOrefice. Welcome, Chris. We’re so thrilled to have you as a part of the team.
As I reflect on the past 12 months, I’m incredibly proud of the Ulta Beauty team and all we have accomplished. We closed the year strong, delivering full year financial performance ahead of our plans while making important guest-facing investments to position our business for future growth. For the year, we grew net sales by nearly 10% to $12.4 billion, delivered operating income of $1.5 billion or 12.4% of sales and EPS of $25.64.
Today, I will start by briefly highlighting our fourth quarter and holiday performance and then discuss our full year performance and the progress we made against our Ulta Beauty Unleashed strategy before sharing more details on our plans and priorities for fiscal 2026. Our team stayed focused on executing and caring for our guests, delivering stronger-than-expected fourth quarter sales and continued market share gains in mass and prestige beauty. Successful events fueled our performance, including Black Friday and Cyber Monday, along with key post-holiday events like our fan favorite Love Your Skin and Jumbo Love promotions. Holiday served as a culmination of our efforts to advance the business throughout 2025. We developed a thoughtful cross-functional holiday strategy supported by outstanding in-store and digital execution, bold and relevant marketing campaigns and activations and compelling holiday assortment and gift sets.
Guest engagement was high and many guests leaned into convenience of our omnichannel buy anywhere, fill anywhere capabilities during the busy holiday season. Our store and digital teams executed with excellence, delivering record-breaking holiday performance. We introduced a fun holiday marketing campaign focused on the 12 Days of Giftmas featuring celebrity brand founders, which drove meaningful gains in awareness and brand love scores. We drove comp growth across all categories and made gifting easy with a curated and powerful holiday assortment, impactful newness and leading fragrance offering. Our relentless commitment to operational excellence had store teams quickly restocking after high-volume holidays to serve guests and maximize selling opportunities, while our supply chain teams leveraged recent distribution center upgrades to increase our delivery speed to guests.
Turning to our full year performance. Fiscal 2025 was a year of strategic investment and deliberate transformative change for Ulta Beauty, change that challenged us to sharpen our focus, strengthen our capabilities and position our business for sustainable, profitable growth in the rapidly evolving beauty market. We began the year with a clear vision on how we intend to unleash the power of our model, build on our foundational advantages and reassert our leadership position in beauty through the execution of our Ulta Beauty Unleashed strategy with a clear focus on three priorities: driving core business growth, scaling new businesses and realigning our foundation for the future. Paired with the collective commitment and agility of our teams, we turned vision into reality and made exceptional progress across each pillar of our strategy, reigniting our growth, strengthening our core and delivering better-than-planned financial performance.
Let me briefly highlight the advancements we made during the quarter. We elevated our execution and more consistently delivered a differentiated omnichannel guest experience, further solidifying Ulta Beauty as the unmatched beauty destination for all guests. This came to life through a recommitment to the best-in-class execution and stronger merchandise in stock, incremental investments in payroll hours to support the guest experience, more than 100,000 in-store events, which included brand launches, brand education and celebrity appearances, and highlighted our differentiated in-store experience.
Ongoing digital upgrades, which added guest-friendly features like replenish and save and wish list and expanded convenience through features like split cart and increased personalization through the power of AI and our automated marketing engine that delivered relevant, dynamic and timely content across the customer journey. We strengthened and modernized our assortment and merchandising strategy, accelerating pipeline momentum and delivering a powerful wave of newness that included more than 100 new brands this year, including Moroccanoil, amika, medicube, isima, Drake’s Better World Fragrance and TIRTIR among many more.
Key elements that supported our merchandising evolution included thoughtful, purposeful collaboration with our brand partners to fuel the innovation pipeline with new products like Fenty’s Diamond collection and Morphe eyeshadow palettes, a new elevated go-to-market approach that established tighter collaboration between our merchandising, marketing and store teams and helped drive operational excellence, marketing leadership and compelling merchandising innovation. A bold new marketing strategy with reimagined events like our Only at Ulta event, which highlighted our differentiated exclusive assortment and powerful cultural activations like our sponsorship of the Cowboy Carter Tour in conjunction with Beyonce’s Cecred haircare launch and elevating our brand-building capabilities, enabling us to build stronger portfolios of exclusive brands and products that drive meaningful differentiation and new member acquisition.
Noteworthy successes in 2025 include Cecred, which became our largest prestige hair care launch in history, prestige skincare K-Beauty brand, Peach & Lily, influencer-founded makeup brand DIBS, and Gen Z’s most loved fragrance brand, NOYZ. We built and expanded into new growth channels through our international expansion beyond the US with nearly 100 stores in five countries. This included our acquisition of Space NK, a luxury beauty retailer operating more than 80 stores in the UK and Ireland, the opening of nine stores in Mexico via our joint venture partner, Grupo Axo, and the opening of two stores in the Middle East through our franchise partner, Alshaya. Our newly launched Marketplace, a curated online assortment that allows guests to explore a complementary array of beauty, wellness and lifestyle products on ulta.com and our app. The assortment includes more than 200 established and emerging brands and 5,000 SKUs.
Our wellness initiative, which included the addition of nearly 30 new brands in our core wellness assortment and nearly 40 new brands in our marketplace assortment, along with an expanded store presence in more than 400 stores and new UB Media capabilities like the addition of connected TV and streaming audio products that drove engagement and incremental ad revenue. We made notable progress aligning our foundation to support future growth through important leadership changes to ensure our team was positioned to meet the needs of our evolving business and ongoing cost optimization efforts, including investment in AI and automation, like the testing a new conversational AI capabilities for our guest services team, which streamlined and increased resolution efficiency and quality as well as the implementation of an AI-powered order management system to optimize fulfillment across our network, enabling our expansion of ship from store and reducing out of stocks and markdown rest.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we reignited our culture and reinvigorated our brand, and our guests, associates and brand partners took notice. We did this through decisive organizational changes that accelerated decision-making and aligned teams and resources around guest-centric goals. Adopting a winning mindset as we stacked key successes and build momentum throughout the year, we steadily reignited our collective spirit or as I like to say, we got our swagger back. And a new marketing brand equity campaign, Beauty happens here in bold and fresh marketing activations, which placed Ulta Beauty at the center of exciting cultural moments like Lollapalooza and Coachella and a renewed enthusiasm for the magic of our mission to bring the power of beauty to life for all ages and all life stages. By nearly all measures of success, our team delivered against our plans.
During fiscal 2025, we drove 5.4% comparable sales growth and positive comp growth across all categories. We strengthened conversion in stores, increased transactions and drove improving NPS scores. We grew our loyalty program by 5% to a record 46.7 million active members, driven by strong growth in reactivated members and strong retention of existing members. We gained market share in both mass and prestige beauty. We delivered greater app engagement with approximately 60% of online sales made through the app and drove active app users up 15% year-over-year. And we drove significant EMV and reached record levels of unaided awareness. While the guest-facing investments we made this year pressured profitability, the steady progress and results driven in fiscal 2025 reinforce our expectations that these investments position us to return sustainable profitable growth and to deliver against our long-term financial targets in fiscal 2026 and beyond.
Before I turn to our plans and priorities for 2026, let me first touch on our view of the consumer, the current beauty landscape and our expectations going forward. Throughout 2025, we closely monitored consumer behavior and observed continued resilience, a strong focus on value and affordability and increasing discernment in spending decisions. At the same time, engagement with the beauty category remained healthy and the landscape remained competitive. We expect these themes to continue into fiscal 2026, though we are increasingly mindful of rising global conflicts that could impact economic conditions. Absent increased broader macro disruption for the year, our expectation for the beauty category growth is in line with the average historical growth rate with expected growth in the 2% to 4% range.
As we turn to fiscal 2026, our Ulta Beauty Unleashed strategy will continue to guide our priorities as we build on the successes of fiscal 2025. Chris will highlight our financial outlook, but let me touch on our priorities and plans for 2026. First, our core business in the US, which now includes more than 1,500 stores and robust digital offering is our top priority, and we continue to see significant opportunity to unlock further growth. In 2026, we will continue to enhance our brand-building efforts to further elevate and differentiate our assortment and strengthen our position as the retailer of choice to launch, build, scale and globalize across the full low- to luxury portfolio. We will continue to strengthen our appeal to meet guests’ evolving beauty needs with innovative and relevant newness, like the record-breaking launch of Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez and the exclusive launch of Balmain’s new scent, Destin De Balmain.
We will continue to invest in the heart of our experience, our stores to extend our competitive advantage and capture key growth opportunities. We will build on our progress across our digital platforms with new capabilities and stronger guest engagement through personalization as we leverage greater automation and real-time content to tailor the guest experience and provide even more value to our loyal members. And we are pleased to announce today an expanded strategic integration with TikTok.
Next week, we will launch Ulta Beauty on TikTok Shop, where guests can purchase immediately as they engage with content from Ulta Beauty and our brands on the platform. We are excited about the opportunities both social and AI-enhanced commerce platforms are providing us to bring our undeniably Ulta Beauty experience and assortment to life. We will initially launch with a thoughtfully curated assortment of only at Ulta brands, which will add another exciting tool to our brand-building playbook.
Next, in order to maximize key incremental growth opportunities and remain resilient in a rapidly changing world, we will work to scale our new businesses. We intend to continue our international expansion in the UK, in Mexico and the Middle East through our existing partners. We will thoughtfully expand our wellness and marketplace assortment to drive new member acquisition and spend per member and add new UB Media capabilities to collectively fuel incremental profit growth.
Finally, turning to our third area of focus, aligning our foundation for the future by optimizing our ways of working and streamlining our cost structure. In 2026, we plan to continue our supply chain transformation efforts with the rollout of increased automation in existing facilities and started construction of a new regional distribution center in the Northwest later this year that will expand network capacity and increase fulfillment speed. We plan to invest in systems and processes to drive sales and inventory productivity through new merchandising transformation efforts. And we will continue to further our mission to support human possibility by expanding our AI capabilities to support the guest experience, drive associate productivity, empower smarter decision-making.
Beauty is deeply personal, and we believe leveraging new AI capabilities will enable us to deliver relevance, inspiration and expertise seamlessly across the guest beauty journey. Powered by our loyalty ecosystem, rich first-party data and convenient omnichannel footprint, we are engaging with industry leaders to explore how we can further leverage AI to amplify what makes Ulta Beauty distinct. All of these efforts will support our ongoing cost optimization efforts to fuel investment and support profitable growth. As we close out a strong fourth quarter and a transformative year, I want to thank our associates, guests, brand partners and shareholders for their continued trust and partnership.
As I reflect on my first year as CEO, I am proud of the progress that we made to deliver on our commitments, strengthen our strategic position and invest in capabilities that will drive our next phase of growth. We are optimistic about the opportunities ahead while remaining mindful and cautious as we navigate an environment with ongoing global uncertainty and potential economic volatility. Looking forward, we will control what we can control, put our prior strategic investments to work as we focus on strong execution, innovation that creates real value for our guests and disciplined results return-driven capital allocation. I’m excited about what the future holds for Ulta Beauty. We have ambitious plans, and I’m confident that we have the right team, the right model, the right strategy and the swagger to continue to win in the beauty category and create value for our shareholders.
And with that, I’ll turn it over to Chris to cover some of the specific financial results and our 2026 outlook. Chris?
Chris DelOrefice — Chief Financial Officer
Thanks, Kecia, and good afternoon, everyone.
Before I discuss our recent financial results and our outlook for fiscal 2026, let me first say how excited I am to join Ulta Beauty. Over the last three months, I’ve enjoyed getting to know the Ulta Beauty team and gaining a deeper appreciation for the company’s strategic positioning, financial strengths and its strong people-focused culture. Ulta Beauty is a beloved brand operating in an attractive and resilient category. Our Ulta Beauty Unleashed strategy is fueling market share growth, driving guest engagement and furthering our differentiation in a competitive category. We have more than 60,000 talented associates who bring our brand to life and serve our guests with passion and commitment every day.
We have strengthened our foundation, invested in key capabilities and maintained a solid financial foundation with strong operating cash flow that enables value creation and also provides us with financial flexibility to pursue growth opportunities and weather dynamic macro environments. I’m excited and optimistic about the future of Ulta Beauty, and I am energized to serve as a strategic partner to Kecia and the rest of the executive team to ensure we build on our momentum with a strong focus on driving long-term sustainable growth and maximizing value creation.
So with that, let’s get into our results. Starting with the quarter, net sales for the quarter increased 11.8% to $3.9 billion compared to $3.5 billion last year. During the quarter, we opened five new and remodeled 18 Ulta Beauty stores. We also opened two new and relocated one Space NK store. For the year, we opened a total of 63 net new stores, relocated 6 stores and remodeled 42 stores, in line with our previously provided guidance.
We ended the year with 1,505 Ulta Beauty stores and 86 Space NK stores. Comparable sales for the period increased 5.8%, driven by a 4.2% increase in average ticket and a 1.6% increase in transactions. Looking at the cadence of sales through the quarter, comp sales were fairly consistent, reflecting both the strong holiday season and the lapping of softness in January last year. I would note that we did see some impact from the weather at the end of January this year. From a channel perspective, both store and digital channels contributed to comp growth with e-commerce sales delivering mid-teen growth and comp stores increasing sales in the low single-digit range.
Turning now to sales by category. The skin care and wellness category increased to 24% of sales, and the makeup category decreased to 35% of sales, primarily reflecting the impact of Space NK, which has a higher mix of skin care sales than our Ulta Beauty business. Fragrance was the strongest performing category again this quarter, delivering double-digit comp growth fueled by newness from established brands, including YSL and Prada as well as exclusive brands such as NOYZ, Snif, and Summer Mink by Drake, coupled with strong performance of holiday gift sets. New co-branded TV campaigns, expanded space in stores and better in-stocks successfully positioned Ulta Beauty as the fragrance destination this holiday season.
The hair care category delivered its best comp performance this year with comp growth for the quarter in the high single-digit range, primarily driven by strong performance from new brands, including amika and Moroccanoil and exclusive Cecred, which continued to build sales momentum after a fantastic launch in April. The skin care and Wellness category delivered mid-single-digit comp growth driven by prestige, skin care and wellness. K-Beauty brands, medicube, ANUA, and Peach & Lily, and new brands, DRMTLGY and Personal Day drove strong guest engagement, while highly giftable launches from Therabody, Nodpod and Saje, which is exclusive to Ulta Beauty, delivered strong growth in wellness.
We took market share in the makeup category with low single-digit growth in total, supported by positive comps in both mass and prestige makeup. Mass makeup growth was driven by compelling newness from brands like L’Oreal, Morphe and Ulta Beauty Collection, while Prestige Beauty benefited from newness from Kylie Cosmetics and MAC. Finally, services delivered mid-single-digit comp growth, driven by increases in salon and specialty services, including ear piercing and makeup services.
Gross margin for the quarter decreased 10 basis points to 38.1% of sales. The decrease was primarily due to channel mix and deleverage of store fixed costs and other revenue. These headwinds were mostly offset by lower inventory shrink and leverage of supply chain fixed costs, reflecting efficiencies from our supply chain optimization efforts. Our team’s relentless focus on reducing inventory shrink has delivered meaningful benefits every quarter this year. Our investments in fixtures and process improvements, targeted efforts in high-risk markets and focused associate training have resulted in shrink reductions across every category.
Moving to expenses. SG&A increased 23% to $1 billion. SG&A growth was primarily driven by higher incentive compensation, including rewarding our frontline and field associates, reflecting strong financial performance versus our targets this year compared to lower incentive comp in fiscal 2024. The impact of Space NK and investments we made to support our Ulta Beauty Unleash strategy also contributed to SG&A growth. Excluding the impact of incentive compensation and Space NK, SG&A growth for the quarter was about 17%. As a percentage of sales, SG&A increased 230 basis points to 25.7%. Consistent with our investment strategy, expenses deleveraged across most components of SG&A with the exception of store payroll and benefits, which were approximately flat as a percentage of sales. Operating profit was $477 million or 12.2% of sales and diluted earnings per share for the quarter was $8.01 per share.
Now to recap fiscal 2025 on a full year basis, net sales increased 9.7% or $1.1 billion to $12.4 billion. Comp sales increased 5.4%, driven by a 3.3% increase in average ticket and a 2% increase in transactions. Gross margin increased 30 basis points to 39.1% of sales. The increase was primarily due to lower inventory shrink and higher merchandise margin, which were partially offset by channel mix and the deleverage of other revenue. SG&A expense increased 17.4% to $3.3 billion. The growth was primarily driven by higher incentive compensation, the impact of Space NK and investments we made to support our Ulta Beauty Unleashed strategy. Excluding the impact of incentive compensation and Space NK, SG&A growth for the year was about 13%. Operating profit was $1.5 billion or 12.4% of sales, and diluted EPS increased 1.2% to $25.64 per share, above our previously provided guidance.
Moving to the balance sheet and our capital deployment strategies. We ended the year with $494 million in cash and short-term investments and $62 million in short-term debt, primarily related to Space NK. Total inventory increased 10.8% to $2.2 billion, primarily reflecting additional inventory to support new brands, the acquisition of Space NK and the impact of 60 net new Ulta Beauty stores. The increase also reflects inventory investments in key categories to improve in-stock levels and support strategic growth opportunities. Our business generated more than $1.5 billion in cash from operations for the year, which supported reinvestment of $435 million in capital expenditures and $890 million in share repurchases.
To summarize our fiscal 2025 performance, the strategic investments and actions taken as part of the Ulta Beauty Unleashed strategy enabled us to accelerate top line growth, capture market share faster than expected and ultimately exceed the commitments we made at the start of the year. I want to express my sincere gratitude to our teams for delivering this outperformance and positioning us well as we enter fiscal 2026. As we look to fiscal 2026, we are focused on expanding our market share, driving returns from the investments we’ve made over the last few years and importantly, returning to profitable growth.
Our 2026 plan is aligned to our long-term targets and reflects several key financial goals anchored in our value creation principles, including disciplined cost management, which helps fuel investment to support a strong growth profile. For the year, we anticipate net sales will increase between 6% to 7% with comp sales growth between 2.5% and 3.5%. We are planning on operating profit to grow in line or faster than net sales, and we expect diluted EPS will increase more than operating profit. For modeling purposes, we expect net sales will be between $13.1 billion and $13.2 billion, primarily driven by comp sales growth and the impact of 50 to 60 net new company-operated stores.
Overall, we are planning stronger sales growth in the first half of the year as we benefit from the acquisition of Space NK and lap easier comp growth comparisons in the first quarter. We expect gross margin will be approximately flat as benefits from higher merchandise margin, driven primarily by greater inventory productivity will likely be offset by deleverage of store fixed costs and other revenue. We will continue to invest in growth opportunities, but we are planning SG&A growth to be in line with to slightly below net sales growth and significantly lower than fiscal 2025, enabled by productivity programs and disciplined investment prioritization.
Keep in mind, we expect to realize double-digit SG&A growth in the first half of fiscal 2026 as we won’t lap the acquisition of Space NK and the annualization of investments until the second half of fiscal 2026. We expect operating profit will increase between 6% and 9%, resulting in operating margin being flat to up 20 basis points, primarily reflecting the anticipated pace of SG&A growth, we expect operating profit growth will be stronger in the second half of the year. We expect these plans, combined with the ongoing efforts to enhance inventory productivity, will continue to generate strong operating cash flow, which will enable reinvestment to support future growth and also support our intent to return approximately $1 billion of capital to shareholders through our stock repurchase program.
We expect capital expenditures for the year will be between $400 million and $450 million, primarily to expand and refresh our store portfolio as well as investments in digital and information technology capabilities and supply chain optimization to support the guest experience and drive further operational productivity. Reflecting these assumptions, we anticipate diluted EPS will be between $28.05 and $28.55 per share, representing growth between 9.4% and 11.4%, respectively, including the impact of share repurchases and an assumed tax rate between 24.2% and 24.4%.
In closing, the execution of our Ulta Beauty Unleash strategy in 2025 enabled us to accelerate top line growth and deliver stronger performance than planned. Building on this foundation, we have developed a plan for fiscal 2026 that delivers against our long-term financial targets, including market share expansion, profitable growth and strong cash generation, which support attractive EPS growth and compelling value creation.
And now I’ll turn the call over to our operator to moderate the Q&A session.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
[Operator Instructions] Your first question will come from Krisztina Katai with Deutsche Bank.
Krisztina Katai
Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking the question. I wanted to start by asking on the composition of the comp. Can you talk about pricing and what you’re seeing from the brands? Because the 4.2% ticket was very strong. But on the other hand, transactions decelerated, especially when looking on a two-year stack. Maybe can you touch on the dynamics there and just how you’re thinking about it in 2026 as it unfolds? Thank you.
Kecia Steelman
Krisztina, thanks for the question. We see pricing increases every year. They typically impact about 10% to 15% of the overall assortment. And we’re really planning for normalized pricing environment in fiscal 2026. We’ll continue to work with our brand partners and navigate potential pricing increases, but we’re not seeing or hearing anything that’s outside of the normal territory.
Krisztina Katai
Okay. And then just a question on SG&A, which came in a little bit higher. Can you maybe touch on how much of that was incremental marketing and how you’re thinking about the wraparound effect of that in ’26? And then as we think about the — if you could touch on the promotional backdrop in beauty across the industry, just what are you seeing with the cost of customer acquisition? Would love to get your thoughts there. Thank you.
Kecia Steelman
Chris, why don’t you start?
Chris DelOrefice
Yes. So regarding SG&A, obviously, we were pleased with the performance in Q4 and the ability to overdeliver both sales and EPS above the high end of our guidance. We also delivered our operating margin at the high end of our guidance. So if you think about it, we overdelivered sales above the high end of our guidance by about $85 million, and we had flow-through of EPS upside similar to our margin rate. So we did make some investments in SG&A in between there.
A few things I would point to. One, we had to absorb higher incentive comp on the overperformance. The second thing to note is, of course, there are some variable costs that are attributed to the increased sales, for example, increased tasking in stores. In addition to that, we did make some investments to support the outperformance in growth, most notably marketing, some media investments that not only helped 2025, but positions us nicely as we look into 2026. So we’re definitely pleased with how we finished 2025, and we think that positions us nicely as we move into 2026, as you can see from the guidance we provided.
Kecia Steelman
Yes. And then just a little bit on promotionality. We don’t have any plans to accelerate promotion, but we recognize that the environment is competitive, it’s dynamic, and there is an increased focus right now out there on value. But it’s one of the levers that we can pull into. And with us having such a strong loyalty base, our investments that we’ve made in personalization, along with other ways that we’ve invested to really be relevant and top of mind for that guest, we currently don’t have any elevated promotionality built into the current plan or in the guidance.
Krisztina Katai
That’s great. Best of luck.
Kecia Steelman
Thank you.
Operator
Your next question will come from Chris Horvers with JPMorgan.
Chris Horvers
Thanks, and good evening, everybody. So I just want to jump back on your comments earlier about the backdrop, Kecia, 2.5% to 2% to 4% industry growth, is that a deceleration versus 2025? And then to what extent are you baking in the geopolitical backdrop? Obviously, a lot has changed in the past two weeks. Did you take that into account when you were thinking about the sales outlook for the year, including your own share gains?
Kecia Steelman
Yes. Let me — thanks, Chris, for the question. It’s very close to 2025. We — the comp guidance really reflects a normalization and the fact that we’re going to be increasingly having some challenging comps as we move through the year. We’ve adjusted for dynamic operating environment. We’re staying really focused on controlling what we can control. Just a little color on how we looked at when we were building the 2.5% to 3.5%. There were really 4 areas that we looked at. The first was really on consumer demand. We’re cautious about how the consumer demand could evolve given the macro pressures and rising conflicts. But beauty has been a resilient category to these macro pressures. So we see that the beauty engagement is going to continue to be healthy in 2026.
The second, I touched on this just earlier about the promotional environment. There’s no plans for us to accelerate promotion, but it’s going to be competitive out there. And I want to be continuing to focus on driving share and growth, and we’re going to stay close to it, but we always want to look at market share and top line healthy growth is a measure to our success. And then pricing, I touched on that. We don’t see anything that’s going to be out of the ordinary within pricing. And then the growth of the category is between that 2% to 4%. But just as a quick reminder, we’re going against some easier comps in the first half versus the second half of this year. And we’re just continuing to focus on controlling what we can control and making sure that we have a plan that gives us the ability to continue to take share and to build a strategy around numbers that we feel like regardless of the economic environment that we can continue to hit.
Chris Horvers
Got it. And then I guess you launched Rare Beauty to start the year. And so can you talk about what the early response is to Rare Beauty? How should we size it in terms of an analog? Is this something like Kylie? Is this something like when you launched Fenty, typically, you talked about 25% to 30% of sales growth is newness. How should we think about Rare relative to that number and relative to other analogs when you launch some significant brands? Thanks so much.
Kecia Steelman
Absolutely. So just to maybe start with your last point. When you look at 2025, you’re right, 20% to 30% of our growth is coming from newness. We were a little on that higher end of the scale in 2025. So we’re closer to that 30%. Rare, while it came out of the gates very strong, and we’re thrilled because makeup having this halo impact in makeup is fantastic for us. It’s one brand, and we carry 600 brands in the assortment.
What we are — what I can share about quarter-to-date trends so far is that we were pleased with February. We’re still early in the quarter. And we do have easier compares, as I mentioned earlier in Q&A that we’re going against easier numbers in the first half comp. But we have this embedded already in our guidance of the 2.5% to 3%. But yes, we were thrilled with what we saw with Rare coming out of the gate strong. Lauren and team had done a great job with newness and the cadence of newness in 2025. We like what we see with the cadence of newness in 2026. But one brand doesn’t change the entire course of our business at the same time.
Hopefully, that answered your question.
Chris Horvers
Understood. Thanks so much.
Operator
Your next question will come from Sydney Wagner with Jefferies.
Sydney Wagner
Hi, thanks for taking our question. Can you just give us a little bit more of an update on what you’re seeing in terms of the competitive environment? We’ve seen some pushing from mass retailers into prestige. So I’m just curious what you think about are the most important elements of the business to maintain your competitive moat in the category? And what helps you continue to win new brands? Thank you.
Kecia Steelman
Thanks for the question, Sydney. Beauty has always been a competitive category, but I would say that this is what we do. This is what Ulta Beauty is about. We cover everything from low to lux and everything in between. And when you add wellness into this mix, we’re a trusted location with expertise that’s broad in a curated assortment with our leading loyalty program with this omnichannel activation that we’re continuing to invest in. We just announced today about our TikTok, which I think is going to be another quiver for us to continue to engage with new guests. We just are leaning into what makes us different, which, again, I do believe it’s that low to luxe with services and wellness all captured into it. We’ve been talking a little bit more about leaning into our brand-building capabilities.
We’re bringing an elevated focus on how do we continue to engage with newness and exclusivity, which continues to separate us from everyone else. But again, a lot of people want to get into beauty because it’s an attractive category because of the margins, et cetera. But this is what we do, and we’re just going to double down on the strength and the power of this model. The Ulta Beauty Unleashed plan, I could not be more pleased with how we were performing against the plan in 2025. We’re just going to continue to double down and really start to reap the reward of the investments that we made in 2025 and harvest that in 2026. And I would just say, stay tuned. We are pleased with the progress we’ve made, and I feel like we are focused on the right strategies for us to continue to be a share gainer in the future.
Operator
Your next question will come from Oliver Chen with TD Cowen.
Oliver Chen
Hi, Kecia and Chris, as we think about makeup in next year, what do you see happening relative to mass and prestige? And is the comp going to be pretty modest in the makeup and outperform in fragrance that related product question is K-Beauty and Wellness. I know you have a lot of really good talent in wellness and you’re thinking about that category more dramatically. Does that — when you put that space in, how does it interplay with the categories that currently exist? And K-Beauty might be a massive megatrend. So would love your take.
And Chris, a follow-up. On the comp store sales guidance, what do you need to leverage your fixed costs? Historically, it’s been higher than mid-single digits. But what should we know in terms of deleverage on the 2% to 5% to 3% to 5%? And on your promotional question on guidance, were you saying promos this year ahead will be flat to last year? Are you giving yourself some breathing room to have higher promos than last year? Although I know you’re working on many efficiencies around simplified better promotions. Thank you.
Kecia Steelman
All right. Well, thanks, Oliver. I’ll start. Yes, we’re focused on everything from low to lux and everything in between. I think it gives us a strategic advantage that we do carry across all price points, especially if there could be potential pressures on the consumer’s wallet in the future. In regards to K-Beauty and Wellness, one of the things that I’m very pleased with is that Lauren and team are working on SKU rationalization and making sure that unproductive SKUs that we are really leveraging and bringing in both wellness and K-Beauty. One of the things that we’re really focused on is this authenticity and quality of the brands. You see a lot of K-Beauty in and out, and it’s almost like fashion that you see. We’re really leaning into at Ulta Beauty, the efficacy of the products and making sure that the products really give the results.
We want to do all of the research for the guests. So when they come in, they buy K-Beauty products that — they’re known and trusted that they actually work, and that’s been working really well for us. And I would say that same philosophy is true for Wellness. One of the things that I’m very excited about is in regards to our marketplace. And if you think about marketplace, you think about it as a mezzanine into our existing store. So it’s a complementary assortment that doesn’t take away from what you could buy in store today, but it’s another item that you could add to your basket. So we’re taking that approach really from end-to-end with K-Beauty, with wellness, with marketplace and everything from low to lux and everything in between.
Maybe Chris?
Chris DelOrefice
Yes. On the store fixed cost and the deleverage, maybe what I would share is, one, as you heard, we’re planning gross margin flat year-over-year. So we have multiple levers that we do to try and manage that. So we see opportunity in merch margin. We’re continuing to drive supply chain optimization as well. And we’ll still continue to benefit from shrink. I think the other thing I’d point to is the new stores is obviously still an important component to driving growth. And what we’re also doing is we’re rolling out new store formats, a smaller format this past year, about 25% of our stores with that new format. 2026, we expect more like 15% to be the small store format. So it’s not just about driving top line. It’s also about how we execute, putting new stores in market, and we think that will be an opportunity that helps us. The deleverage there is really modest and manageable, and we’ll manage things holistically across gross margin.
Operator
Your next question will come from Susan Anderson with Canaccord Genuity.
Susan Anderson
Hi, thanks for taking my questions. I was wondering maybe if you could talk about the timing of the new DC in the Northwest. And I guess, how should we think about the cost there? And then I don’t know if I missed this or not, but maybe if you could talk about just the drivers of the op margin being better in the back half. Is that just when the efficiencies start to roll in, I guess? And then are you guys assuming like gross margins pretty flattish throughout the quarters? Thanks.
Kecia Steelman
Yes. Thanks for the question, Susan. I’ll start and then I’ll kick it over to Chris. When we talked about the new DC, it won’t be up and functioning until 2027, but these things take a while to, of course, get out of the ground, especially when you’re building from ground level up. We have that — those dollars are built into our capex plan. So they are both in the long-term algorithm and we are expected to spend is already in this year’s guidance, too, with the cost to get that building started.
And then, Chris, I’ll turn it over to you.
Chris DelOrefice
Yes. So on the progression of operating margin, the primary driver is really SG&A. There’s two key factors. First of all, in the first half of the year all the way up until Q3, right, we’re absorbing Space NK. So you have that impact. The second one is the annualization of the investments we made in the back half of 2025. So then as you move into the second half, you cycle over those. And in addition, especially with Space NK, right, in the holiday season, it tends to be higher sales and you get the leverage from the SG&A there. So those are the key drivers. Our productivity was active in 2025 and will progress throughout the year. I would more point to those 2 factors as the big factors that impact the timing of operating margin first half versus second half.
Susan Anderson
Okay, great. Thanks for the details. Good luck this year.
Kecia Steelman
Thank you.
Operator
Our next question will come from Kate McShane with Goldman Sachs.
Kate McShane
Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking our question. So our question is centered around SG&A as well. Totally understand the different lapse that we are encountering here in 2026. But if we were just to focus on how you are spending around marketing, I know that was part of the unleashed plan to spend more on marketing. Could you maybe just talk a little bit more about plans for that, just how the dollars look maybe versus what you spent in 2025 and what that could look like going forward?
Chris DelOrefice
Yes. So we wouldn’t share that level of detail. But what I could share is a couple of things. One is our SG&A growth profile, right, that we outlined was either in line with sales to slightly below sales. Again, that does include us absorbing Space NK and the annualization of investments. We have been very targeted with our investment priorities. And so one of the top areas that we’ve continued to prioritize is personalization, which will certainly be a core part of our marketing investment. So we’re still investing to grow within that plan in addition to having the carryover investment that we put into place in 2025.
I’ll also point to, you heard me say in Q4, we did invest on the upside sales performance. That did include some marketing and media that we expected to have some benefit as we rolled into the first half of 2026. So we feel really good that we actually have a very disciplined approach on SG&A. We’re prioritizing growth investments in key areas and making intentional choices of where not to invest. And certainly, marketing and personalization remains our high priority.
Kate McShane
Thank you.
Operator
Your next question will come from Mark Altschwager with Baird.
Mark Altschwager
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. First, just following up on the comp guide, the 2.5% to 3.5%. That is a touch below the long-term framework. So I was hoping you could just give us a little bit more detail on the factors driving that, just conservatism to begin of the year or just anything you’re seeing in the environment that’s leading you to take a more cautious approach to that today?
Kecia Steelman
Well, I will say that our initial plan is — and I shared this in the comments, Mark, that we want to be a market share gainer. So we are looking at that as we — our plan — we built this plan is that we do not want to see market share. So I think that this plan, we feel is a thoughtful plan that is one that we can continue to build the expense portfolio around. If there’s potential upside, I’m going to love that. We’ve had — this last year, we had a strategy that was working. It was laid out well.
We outperformed our initial guidance that we shared in 2025, and we beat and raise throughout the year, and we exceeded on all metrics. I’m confident that we’ve got a plan for 2026 that allows us to hit our targets and continue to invest in the business. It will allow us to continue to be a share gainer. And b, I’d say, fiscally responsible in our investments. Some of the numbers that Chris shared, we’re getting some of our expense rates in line. We’ve been in this heavy, heavy investment cycle for many years. And it’s time for us to start to reap some of the rewards of those investments, and that’s what this plan is allowing us to do.
Mark Altschwager
That makes a lot of sense. And then Kecia, just a follow-up. Wondering if you could share any more learnings you’ve had so far on Space and K. And any update to how you’re thinking about unit growth there and geographic expansion to new markets. Thank you.
Kecia Steelman
Yes. Thanks, Mark. Well, what I will say is that we’re pleased with the performance. They have a nice growth in sales. We feel great about the growth strategy. I don’t want to give — I’m not going to give specifics on where we see the growth, but we view this asset as additive to our core business. We see opportunities to really leverage each other’s strengths, access to new brands, clienteling strategies, loyalty programs, and there is the ability for us to continue to grow in a nice market of the UK for us. So it’s still a little early to say like how we feel like we can totally unlock the entire — all the value in Space NK, but we like what we’re seeing so far, and we’re really pleased with the acquisition.
Mark Altschwager
Thank you.
Operator
Your next question will come from Olivia Tong with Raymond James.
Olivia Tong
Great, thanks. You’ve talked in the past about leveraging investments. So can you talk about the level of investment spend for 2026, the initiatives that you have planned this year versus last year, where that leverage is coming from? And then as you look at the margin improvement, what do you think is the right level longer term now that the business is on a better track? What is the right investment level to get back to sort of a steady-state comp growth more in line with the long-term algo? That’s my first question.
And then the second one is just around the consumer environment being as challenging — new challenges to the consumer environment that we perhaps didn’t have a couple of weeks ago. And can you talk about your flexibility and the flexibility in the model to make potential pivots adjustments if necessary. You’ve obviously done a lot to improve promotional cadence, but it seems like the state of the consumer is evolving. Just wanted to get a little bit more detail on that. Thank you.
Chris DelOrefice
So maybe I’ll start with the second part of your first question on how we think of margin. Look, what I would share is the way we think of this is we’re looking to deliver consistent profitable growth. To maximize value creation, what we want to do is maximize profit growth. Margin is a part of that, of course, but I can do that driving incremental top line or through margin leverage. So every year, and this is what’s reflected in our current guide, we’ll have a plan that has a strong productivity goal that’s going to fuel targeted and high ROI investments in a disciplined way. So it won’t be at the expense of margin.
If I see investment opportunities throughout the year, as Kecia said, if we have upside and can increase our operating profit in the current year while continuing to also support future growth momentum, you get a double benefit and can do that preserving margin. That’s what I’ll do. And that will support kind of consistency of growth and then a flywheel of value creation. With that said, again, every year, we’ll have an element of leverage that we’re building into our plan. And we can — as we move throughout the year, figure out how to best optimize profit growth within that while maintaining discipline on margin. So that’s what you see embedded in our plan this year. I did talk about — you asked about how much investment.
It’s hard to answer because we have — we said we would grow SG&A in line with sales to slightly below. But the productivity of the investments in there is actually more than that because we do have productivity initiatives. Supply chain optimization, in particular, has been positive for us. We’re focused on inventory productivity, among other things. So — we feel really good about the areas that we’re investing in this year and the guide that we set up within that framework that is in line with our long-term value creation algorithm and basically being a compounder of double-digit earnings growth.
Kecia Steelman
I would just add that we have the leadership and the team in place that can and will pivot as needed. The fact that we do carry low to lux, it gives us the ability to also flex as the consumer flexes with us. And we have better insights into this category and can leverage AI to make really good strategic business decisions to help us drive this business. While it’s a competitive environment, we’re playing to win and to continue to take share.
Olivia Tong
Great. If I could follow up on some of the newer categories, health and wellness, marketplace, international. How do you think about further expansion in year two on those and adjustments that you need to make in year two and the level of investment in those initiatives going forward?
Kecia Steelman
Well, on international expansion, we are planning on continuing to open stores in our partnership with Grupo Axo and with Alshaya. Right now, we are looking at — this is more of an asset-light approach on how we can continue to grow globally. And it’s an important category for us because we do want to be a global beauty retailer. We are making smart decisions on investment categories like wellness — and there is the opportunity for us to continue to leverage SKU rationalization to have more productive items that are in our store. Four-wall productivity is something that Chris and I are really leaning into. We want to make sure that we’re leveraging that fixed cost base of our 1,500 stores out there to continue to drive profit through the stores and through our P&L. So we’re making good business decisions with a strategic lens that have both short-term and long-term implications on how we can really optimize this model.
All right. Well, with that, I think that, that would be the last question that we had. I just want to thank everyone for joining us today. And I want to thank our associates once again for delivering against our ambitious plans for 2025 and for their dedication in representing the Ulta Beauty brand to our guests each and every day. We’re confident in our strategy. We’re focused on operational excellence and committed to delivering sustainable growth even in this dynamic environment. We look forward to updating you on our progress on the next earnings call on June 2. And I want to thank you all, and have a great evening. Thank you.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks]