AutoZone (NYSE:AZO), the automotive replacement parts manufacturer, reported a rise in its fiscal fourth quarter earnings on Tuesday, outperforming Wall Street's projections. Despite this, the company's shares experienced a slight drop due to underperformance in domestic commercial sales.
The company's earnings for the quarter rose to $46.46 per share, surpassing the estimated $45.17 projected by analysts. This marks an increase from the earnings reported in the same quarter of the previous year.
In terms of net sales, AutoZone also exceeded expectations, reporting $5.69 billion, higher than the predicted $5.61 billion and marking an improvement from the year-ago quarter. However, the company's domestic commercial sales fell short of analysts' forecasts, reaching only $1.499 billion instead of the anticipated $1.55 billion.
Same-store sales for the quarter also saw an increase, rising 4.5%. Although this is a decrease from the 7.1% growth seen a year ago, it remains higher than the 2.4% increase that analysts had projected.
Acknowledging a slow start to the quarter, CEO Bill Rhodes pointed out improvements in the latter half and expressed confidence in the company's strategies to stimulate stronger growth in fiscal 2024, despite slower-than-expected expansion in domestic commercial sales.
In premarket trading on Tuesday, AutoZone shares dropped by 2.2% to $2,467. However, it should be noted that so far this year, the company's shares have seen a net gain of 2.3%.
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