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Warm winter makes for chilly financials for fashion retail icon

Ralph Lauren's financials suffer along with fellow retailers thanks to sluggish winter season clothing sales activity.

February 5, 2016

In what's becoming a repetitive industry tale fashion icon retailer Ralph Lauren doesn’t expect a robust 2016 sales period even though its earnings for Q3 were better than expected.

Its adjusted earnings of $2.27 beat a prediction of $2.11 yet represents a 5.8 percent dip when compared to a year ago and earnings were down 36.1 percent compared to a year ago.

Overall net revenue decreased 4.3 percent, compared to a year ago, and fell short of street estimations, according to a Zacks report. Wholesale revenues dipped 6 percent, compared to a year ago, and retail revenues dropped 3 percent.

The less than stellar financials were due to warmer than usual fall and early winter months that stalled the traditional sales of winter clothing, noted the report.

It’s the same story heard from fellow retailers Kohl’s and Michael Kors.

At the end of Q3 the brand had 501 stores open and 589 concession sites worldwide.

Regarding Q4 the company is expecting to see a 2 percent net revenue dip, compared to a year ago. Looking forward into 2016 the company revised its initial guidance of 3 to 5 percent net revenue increase to 1 percent.

According to Reuters shares dropped 18 percent Thursday following the financial news.