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Kohl's said it now expects full-year earnings to come in at the
bottom end of an already lowered forecast, blaming weak demand
for women's apparel during the crucial shopping season.
The department store operator's shares fell 9% in premarket
trading as it posted a 0.2% drop in comparable sales in November
and December. Smaller rival J.C. Penney posted a 7.5% drop for
the nine-week period ended Jan. 4.
"E-commerce is definitely compromising the competitiveness of
the physical assets of retailers," CFRA Research analyst Camilla
Yanushevsky said. "Amazon, Target and Walmart are really big
names in this space and have squeezed out a lot of the little
guys."
Data from Mastercard in December showed U.S. e-commerce sales in
the period from Nov. 1 through Christmas Eve rose 18.8%, while
overall holiday retail sales, excluding autos, rose just 3.4%.
Macy's Inc <M.N>, however, surprised investors on Wednesday with
a smaller-than-feared drop in holiday season sales after
trimming its own full-year forecast just two months ago.
In November, Kohl's also cut its annual profit forecast by at
least 40 cents per share to $4.75 to $4.95, blaming weakness in
its women's apparel business back then as well.
Victoria's Secret owner L Brands <LB.N> on Thursday lowered its
profit forecast for the fourth quarter after reporting a 3% drop
in comparable store sales for the holiday period, sending its
shares down nearly 4%.
(Reporting by Uday Sampath and Praveen Paramasivam in Bengaluru;
Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)
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