West Marine, Inc. announced Thursday that sales for the second quarter would be approximately $232 million to $233 million. Comparable stores sales for the quarter are estimated to decrease by approximately 4.5% to 4.7%.
John Edmondson, President and CEO of West Marine stated, “The unseasonable weather patterns that we have experienced across most of the country have continued well into the month of June. While we have seen marked improvement in sales toward the end of June, it is not enough to offset the decline in sales for most of the quarter. Our gross margin continues to trend well. We now expect to earn between $0.94 and $0.96 per share versus recent analysts consensus estimates of $1.03 per share and last year’s $0.79 per share. We believe there is pent-up demand going into the third quarter, which leads us to be optimistic that we will meet the third quarter consensus estimate of $0.46 per share versus last year’s $0.35 per share. We expect third quarter sales of $200 million to $203 million.”
“Our guidance for the fourth quarter remains the same. We estimate sales in the $131 million to $133 million range and a fourth quarter loss ranging from $(0.11) to $(0.09) per share versus last year’s loss of $(0.07) per share.”
“Our revised estimate of 2003 earnings ranges from $1.09 to $1.12 per share, versus $0.97 per share last year.”
