ATLANTA, Nov. 19, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- The Home Depot®, the world's largest home improvement retailer, today reported third quarter fiscal 2019 sales of $27.2 billion, an increase of 3.5 percent, or $921 million, compared to the third quarter of fiscal 2018. Comparable sales for the third quarter of fiscal 2019 were positive 3.6 percent, and comparable sales in the U.S. were positive 3.8 percent.

Net earnings for the third quarter of fiscal 2019 were $2.8 billion, or $2.53 per diluted share, compared with net earnings of $2.9 billion, or $2.51 per diluted share, in the same period of fiscal 2018. For the third quarter of fiscal 2019, diluted earnings per share increased 0.8 percent from the same period in the prior year.

"Our third quarter results reflected broad-based growth across our business, yet sales were below our expectations driven by the timing of certain benefits associated with our One Home Depot strategic investments," said Craig Menear, chairman, CEO and president. "We are largely on track with these investments and have seen positive results, but some of the benefits anticipated for fiscal 2019 will take longer to realize than our initial assumptions. As a result, today we are updating our fiscal 2019 sales guidance, and we are reaffirming our fiscal 2019 earnings-per-share guidance. We are encouraged by the momentum in our business as we invest to extend our competitive advantages. I would like to thank our associates for their hard work and continued dedication to our customers."

Fiscal 2019 Guidance

The Company updated its guidance for fiscal 2019, a 52-week year compared to fiscal 2018, a 53-week year. The Company expects its fiscal 2019 sales to grow by approximately 1.8 percent and comp sales for the comparable 52-week period to increase approximately 3.5 percent. This compares to the Company's prior fiscal 2019 sales growth guidance of 2.3 percent and comp sales growth of 4.0 percent. The Company reaffirmed its diluted earnings-per-share guidance for the year and expects diluted earnings-per-share growth of approximately 3.1 percent from fiscal 2018 to $10.03.

The Home Depot will conduct a conference call today at 9 a.m. ET to discuss information included in this news release and related matters. The conference call will be available in its entirety through a webcast and replay at http://ir.homedepot.com/events-and-presentations.

At the end of the third quarter, the Company operated a total of 2,290 retail stores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, 10 Canadian provinces and Mexico. The Company employs more than 400,000 associates. The Home Depot's stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: HD) and is included in the Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor's 500 index.

Certain statements contained herein constitute "forward-looking statements" as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements may relate to, among other things, the demand for our products and services; net sales growth; comparable sales; effects of competition; implementation of store, interconnected retail, supply chain and technology initiatives; inventory and in-stock positions; state of the economy; state of the housing and home improvement markets; state of the credit markets, including mortgages, home equity loans and consumer credit; impact of tariffs; issues related to the payment methods we accept; demand for credit offerings; management of relationships with our associates, suppliers and vendors; continuation of share repurchase programs; net earnings performance; earnings per share; dividend targets; capital allocation and expenditures; liquidity; return on invested capital; expense leverage; stock-based compensation expense; commodity price inflation and deflation; the ability to issue debt on terms and at rates acceptable to us; the impact and expected outcome of investigations, inquiries, claims and litigation; the effect of accounting charges; the effect of adopting certain accounting standards; the impact of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 and other regulatory changes; store openings and closures; guidance for fiscal 2019 and beyond; financial outlook; and the integration of acquired companies into our organization and the ability to recognize the anticipated synergies and benefits of those acquisitions.  Forward-looking statements are based on currently available information and our current assumptions, expectations and projections about future events.  You should not rely on our forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to future events, risks and uncertainties – many of which are beyond our control, dependent on the actions of third parties, or are currently unknown to us – as well as potentially inaccurate assumptions that could cause actual results to differ materially from our expectations and projections. These risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to those described in Item 1A, "Risk Factors," and elsewhere in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for our fiscal year ended February 3, 2019 and in our subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q.

Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made, and we do not undertake to update these statements other than as required by law. You are advised, however, to review any further disclosures we make on related subjects in our periodic filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

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SOURCE The Home Depot