Home Depot beats on revenue, but says customers are still putting off big renovation projects
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- 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.
