Signet sees Q1 sales fall

Signet Jewelers, the parent company of UK retailer H Samuel and Ernest jones, has seen total sales and same stores fall during the first quarter of the year.

For the 13 weeks ending 4 May 2019 Signet posted revenues of £1.43bn (£1.12bn) down 3.3% from the previous year while same store sales fell 1.3%.

Signet Jewelers posted adjusted EPS of $0.08 in the quarter, reflecting a fall of 20% on a year-on-year. However its earnings surpassed Wall Street’s consensus estimate with analysts having expected Signet Jewelers to report negative EPS.

E-commerce sales were $154.3m (£137m), up 5.3% year-over-year, with e-commerce sales accounting for 10.8% of sales, up from 9.9% of total sales in the prior year quarter. Brick and mortar same store sales declined 2.0%.

Signet CEO Virginia C. Drosos: “We delivered operating profit above our guidance range and strong free cash flow in the first quarter, with same store sales at the low end of our guidance.

“Given the sales trends we experienced year to date and softening retail traffic, we are narrowing our Fiscal 2020 guidance while continuing to expect strong progress on cost savings across our business. We remain focused on executing our Path to Brilliance transformation initiatives to improve the trajectory of our same store sales and drive higher profitability over the long-term.”