• Home Depot beat Wall Street revenue forecasts for the fourth quarter of 2024.
• The retailer said, however, that customers are still putting off major renovation projects.
• That's due to higher interest rates in recent years, its CEO and CFO said.

Home Depot beat Wall Street estimates in the fourth quarter of 2024, but said that customers were still putting off bigger home improvement projects amid higher interest rates.

Revenue climbed 14% compared to the same period in 2023. On a comparable sales basis, a metric that strips out new store openings and other one-off events, revenue was up by 0.8% globally and 1.3% in the US.

The Atlanta-headquartered firm reported revenue of $39.7 billion for the fourth quarter of 2024. Analysts had forecast revenue of $39.2 billion.

CEO Ted Decker put the company's better-than-expected revenue down to "greater engagement" in home improvement spending. However, he noted that Home Depot was seeing "ongoing pressure" on business related to larger-scale home renovations.

"A higher interest rate environment" had "impacted home improvement demand," Decker added.

In an interview with CNBC, CFO Richard McPhail said the company expects demand to return as higher rates become the "new normal."

"Home improvement always persists, and so the question, I think, will be around the mindset of whether long-term rates have gotten to a new normal," McPhail said.

The Federal Reserve's key interest rate, which sets a general baseline for all US interest rates, reached 5.5% between July 2023 and August 2024. Though it has been cut to 4.5% in recent months, it remains elevated compared to the near-zero rates seen in the US since the 2008 financial crisis.

While Home Depot reported marginally better-than-expected revenues, its 2025 forecasts fell short of investor expectations. The company said it expected sales growth of 2.8% and comparable sales growth of 1%, compared to analyst forecasts of 3.3% and 1.9% growth, respectively.

Shares dropped in premarket trading on lower-than-expected growth forecasts. They fell as much as 3.8% but recovered a little, and as of around 7:30 a.m. ET, they were set to open down around 0.6%.

Home Depot said it expects an operating margin of roughly 33% in 2025. The home improvement retailer also announced plans to open 13 new stores.

AMD says that it plans to launch its next major data center GPUs, the AMD Instinct MI350 series, sooner than originally announced. During the company’s Q4 2024 earnings call Tuesday, AMD CEO Lisa Su said AMD plans to sample the MI350 with “lead customers” this quarter and “accelerate” production shipments to “mid-year.” “So, we had […]

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• Netflix is raising prices in the US to $18 for its standard plan.
• The hikes come as the company crushed Wall Street's expectations for Q4 subscriber growth.
• These charts show why a Netflix subscription is still a pretty good deal.

Netflix hiked prices in the US on Tuesday. Even at $18 a month, data shows a subscription is a pretty good deal.

The standard Netflix plan now costs $17.99 a month, up from $15.49, while the premium plan that includes 4K video goes for $24.99, versus $22.99 before. For the first time, Netflix also increased the price of its ad-supported plan to $7.99 from $6.99.

These price hikes aren't too surprising. YouTube TV just raised prices by $10 a month, and Disney has consistently charged more for its streaming services. Disney+ now charges nearly $16 for its basic plan — more than double what it did when it launched in late 2019.

Netflix last raised prices in the US in October 2023.

Still, Netflix is by far the cheapest service on a per-hour-of-consumption basis, according to a recent note from UBS media analyst John Hodulik.

Before Tuesday's increase, customers on Netflix's ad-free plan paid $0.33 per month per hour they watched, according to Nielsen and company data analyzed by UBS. That suggests the average customer is watching the service for a staggering 47 to 70 hours a month.

That's cheaper on a per-hour basis than Netflix's major streaming rivals and traditional TV, UBS found.

Those on Netflix's ad plan are also getting a steal. UBS found that they're paying $0.15 per hour they watch, and the data suggests they're watching just as much as those on the ad-free plan.

The streaming giant also has an industry-leading churn rate: 1.8% of its customers canceled last quarter, according to streaming data firm Antenna. This is a sign that subscribers largely think they're getting their money's worth.

The price hikes come as Netflix invests in more live programming, including NFL games, which have drawn large streaming audiences.

The company added nearly 19 million subscribers in the fourth quarter of 2024, shattering Wall Street's estimates for the period. Netflix generated $1.8 billion in net income during the quarter and said it expects to rake in close to $2.5 billion in Q1.