Strong Holiday at Ulta Raises Q4 Outlook

”We delivered an excellent holiday season, with comparable store sales growth of 12.6% balanced across categories and brands, continuing our strong momentum from the first nine months of the year. We believe, once again, that we gained market share across our major categories driven by our consistent ability to capitalize on current trends and introduce newness, elevate our guest experience with exciting in-store events and traffic-driving communications to our loyal customer base,” said Chuck Rubin, Ulta’s president and CEO. “This, combined with our great value proposition and strong customer service, led to another successful holiday season. As a result of our better-than-expected performance, we have raised our fourth quarter outlook.”

Driven by favorable holiday sales, the company is increasing its fourth quarter fiscal 2011 outlook provided in conjunction with its third quarter fiscal 2011 results on December 1, 2011.


The company now expects fourth quarter fiscal 2011 net sales in the range of $574 million to $579 million, as compared to its previous guidance of $552 million to $562 million. Fourth quarter fiscal 2010 net sales were $473.7 million.


Comparable store sales for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2011 are now expected to increase in a range of 10% to 11%. This compares to the company’s previous expectation for comparable store sales to increase in a range of 6% to 8%. Fourth quarter fiscal 2010 comparable sales increased 10.4%.


This updated sales guidance range results in a two year comparable store sales increase of 20.4% to 21.4%.