Walgreens (WBA) earnings Q3 2023

Walgreens On Tuesday, it cut its full-year earnings guidance as it fell short of Wall Street’s expectations for the fiscal third quarter due to lower consumer spending and lower demand for Covid vaccines and testing.

The retail pharmacy chain lowered its earnings guidance to a range of $4.00 to $4.05 per share for the full year, down from its previous forecast of $4.45 to $4.65 per share.

Rosalind Brewer, CEO, said it is increasing Walgreen’s cost-cutting initiative to $4.1 billion and is taking immediate action to increase profitability in the company’s US healthcare segment.

“I am confident our turnaround strategy is helping WBA drive sustainable underlying growth and deliver long-term shareholder value,” Brewer said in a statement.

Shares of Walgreens fell nearly 7% in pre-market trading after the release.

Here’s how Walgreens performs on file fiscal third quarter Compared to what Wall Street was expecting based on analyst estimates in a Refinitiv poll:

• Earnings: Adjusted $1.00 per share, versus $1.07 expected.
• he won: 35.42 billion dollars, compared to the expected 34.24 billion dollars.

The profit loss marked the first time Walgreens has performed below analyst expectations since July 2020.

But the company beat revenue expectations and delivered sales growth, booking sales of $35.4 billion in the quarter — 8.6% higher than revenue of $32.6 billion in the year-ago period — due to growth in the retail pharmacy and health care segments.

Walgreens reported net profit of $118 million for the quarter, or 14 cents per unadjusted share, down 59% from the $289 million in income the company reported in the same quarter last year. The company says the drop was mainly due to lower operating income.

The company’s US retail pharmacy segment generated approximately $28 billion in sales this quarter, an increase of 4.4% compared to the same period last year. Comparable sales at individual locations increased 7% compared to the third quarter of 2022.

Walgreens’ drugstore sales also increased 6.3% year-over-year, with similar sales up nearly 10% due to price inflation for branded drugs.

Total prescriptions filled in the quarter, including immunizations, increased slightly, 0.1%, for a total of 305 million. Covid vaccines taken over the period decreased by 83% to 800,000, down from 4.7 million in the same period last year.

Sales in Walgreens’ healthcare business in the United States were $2 billion, an increase of $1.4 billion over the same period last year.

The company’s partnership with primary care provider VillageMD, which includes urgent care provider Summit Health, saw revenue grow 22%. Sales at Walgreens home health care company CareCentrix increased 15% due to offerings of ancillary services.