Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. (NASDAQ: WBA) topped analysts’ forecasts on both revenue and earnings for the third quarter of 2019. Shares were up by 0.61% in premarket hours on Thursday. The consensus target was for earnings of $1.43 per share on revenue of $34.5 billion.
Sales increased 0.7% year-over-year on a reported basis, and 2.9% on a constant currency basis, to $34.6 billion. The increase was driven mainly by growth in the Retail Pharmacy USA and Pharmaceutical Wholesale divisions.
Reported net earnings attributable to Walgreens Boots Alliance decreased 23.6% to $1 billion while EPS fell 16.5% to $1.13 versus last year. Adjusted earnings dropped 12.1% to $1.3 billion while EPS declined 4% to $1.47.
Sales in the Retail Pharmacy USA segment grew 2.3% to $26.5 billion from last year. Excluding store optimisation impacts related to the Rite Aid stores acquisition, organic sales rose 2.9%. The majority of the division’s sales came from pharmacy sales, which grew 4.3% year-over-year, helped by higher brand inflation and prescription volume as well as strength in central specialty. Retail sales fell 2.9% in the quarter.
Retail Pharmacy International sales fell 7.3% to $2.8 billion versus the prior-year period, reflecting an adverse currency impact of 5.7%. The Pharmaceutical Wholesale unit saw a drop of 1.7% in sales to $5.9 billion, due to a 10% adverse currency impact.
Walgreens maintained adjusted EPS guidance for fiscal 2019 of roughly flat, at constant currency rates. On a reported currency basis, the company anticipates approx. $0.06 per share of adverse currency impact.
During the quarter, the company declared a quarterly dividend of $0.44 per share, payable on June 12, 2019 to stockholders of record as of May 18, 2019.
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