Chewy shares surge after earnings beat on top and bottom lines

Shares of Chewy surged more than 13% in extended trading Wednesday after the pet retailer posted earnings that beat Wall Street’s estimates.

Here’s how the digital retailer did in its fiscal first quarter compared with what Wall Street was anticipating, based on a survey of analysts by Refinitiv:

• Earnings per share: 5 cents, versus a loss of 4 cents a share expected
• Revenue: $2.78 billion, versus $2.73 billion expected

The company’s reported net income for the three-month period that ended April 30 was $22.18 million, or 5 cents a share, compared with $18.47 million, or 4 cents a share, a year earlier.

Sales rose to $2.78 billion, up 14.7% from $2.43 billion a year earlier.

Net sales per active customer and sales from autoship customers reached record highs in the quarter, Chewy said in a press release.

Gross margins were up about 1 percentage point.

The earnings beat comes after the retailer posted its first annual profit at the close of fiscal 2022 earlier this year, but noted the pet industry was seeing softness in discretionary and hard goods categories, which carry higher margins than consumables such as pet food.