FILE PHOTO – A Home Depot employee is seen outside a store in Los Angeles, California March 17, 2015. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson/File Photo
(Reuters) – Home Depot Inc (HD.N) topped Wall Street estimates for quarterly comparable-store sales on Tuesday, as consumers faced with a shaky U.S. housing market spent more on average at the country’s No.1 home improvement chain.
Sales at U.S. stores open for more than a year rose 5.4 percent during the third quarter ended October, above analysts’ expectations of a 4.38 percent increase, according to IBES data from Refinitiv.
Home Depot’s net earnings rose to $2.87 billion or $2.51 per share, from $2.17 billion or $1.84 per share a year earlier.
Net sales overall rose 5.1 percent to $26.30 billion, edging past analysts’ average estimate of $26.26 billion.
Reporting by Aishwarya Venugopal in Bengaluru