Home Depot's Customer Transactions Have Fallen for 5 Straight Quarters
Receipts keep getting bigger, customer transactions keep slipping -- and the next test comes Tuesday.
Overview
On the surface, Home Depot (NYSE: HD) looks steady. The home improvement giant grew fiscal first-quarter sales 4.8% year over year to $41.8 billion, held onto its full-year guidance, and pays a dividend yielding about 2.7% as of this writing.
Underneath, though, one number has been moving the wrong way for more than a year. Comparable customer transactions, the count of purchases at stores and websites open at least a year, fell 1.3% in the fiscal first quarter (the period ended May 3). That marked the fifth consecutive quarterly decline. Total transactions came to 391.1 million for the quarter, down from 394.8 million a year earlier.
Details
Home Depot's revenue growth, in other words, isn't coming from more transactions. It's coming from bigger receipts, and from acquisitions.
Source
Originally published at www.fool.com.