Estee Lauder Companies Inc. Surges on Earnings Beat

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Estee Lauder CEO Fabrizio Freda said the company’s financial performance shows a strong global demand for its brands

Estee Lauder Companies is surging after reporting better-than-expected quarterly earnings and declaring a dividend payment today. The stock price of the company rose more than 8% to $78.43 per share at the time of this writing, around 12:24 in the afternoon in New York.

Estee Lauder financial results

For its second quarter fiscal 2015, Estee Lauder reported a net income of $435.7 million or $1.13 per share, an increase of 3% from $432.5 million or $1.09 per share in the same period last year.

The company’s earnings outperformed that $1.05 per share consensus estimate by analysts based on data compiled by Thomson Reuters.

Estee Lauder said its revenue increased 1% to $3.04 billion for the second quarter.

The company generated revenues of $1.27 billion from skin care, $1.17 billion from make-up, $439 million from fragrance, $137 million from hair care, and $17 million from other products.

Strong global demand for Estee Lauder brands

According to CEO Fabrizio Freda, the company’s financial performance shows a strong global demand for its brands including during the holiday season.

“Our results further demonstrate our ability to grow despite currency headwinds and softness in several countries. For the quarter, our sales and profits came in higher than planned as we continued to leverage our diverse growth engines and capitalized on high-growth opportunities…,” said Freda.

Freda added that the main drivers of Estee Lauder’s performance during the quarter were its make-up, luxury brands, online, specialty-multi, free stand store channels, emerging markets and the United Kingdom.

Estee Lauder declares dividend

Estee Lauder declared a quarterly dividend of $0.24 per share on its Class A and Class B common stock. The dividend will be paid on March 16 to shareholders of record at the close of business February 27.

Third-quarter outlook

Estee Lauder expects to achieve approximately 3% to 4% growth for its global prestige beauty during the next quarter.

The company expected its net sales to increase around 6% to 7% in constant currency during the third quarter. Estee Lauder estimated to generate earnings of around $0.45 to $0.50 per share.

The company also is expecting to outperform the industry by focusing on its fastest growing product categories, channels and countries. It will also leverage its strong sales growth and increase its operating margin and cash flow from operations.

Estee Lauder continues to see economic challenges in certain countries around the world. The company said it remains cautious about the slower growth in China and Hong Kong.

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