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Hibbett (NASDAQ:HIBB) shares are under pressure on Friday after the company missed Q4 expectations and issued soft earnings guidance for fiscal 2025.
The Birmingham, Ala.-based Hibbett earned a profit of $2.55 per share on a 1.8% gain in sales to $466.6M. This was down from $2.91 in the same quarter last year and missed expectations by a penny while sales missed expectations by $10.9M.
Comparable sales for Q4 were down 6.4%, brick and mortar sales were down 9.2%, while e-commerce sales, which comprise 19% of total sales, increased by 6.9% from the same quarter last year.
Gross margin narrowed 70 basis points to 34.5% due to lower average product margin of ~125 basis points and ~55 basis point increase in store occupancy costs.
The company opened 14 new stores in Q4 and closed 3. Cash and cash equivalents increased 32% to $21.2M.
For fiscal year 2025, Hibbett (HIBB) expects to earn a profit between $8.00 and $8.75 per share compared to a profit of $8.17 in fiscal year 2024. This is below the consensus estimate of $8.82 per share.
Total sales in fiscal 2025 are expected to be flat to up 2.0%, while comparable sales are expected to be flat to down by low single digits. Brick and mortar sales are forecasted to be flat to down by low-single digits while e-commerce sales are anticipated to increase by mid to high-single digits. The company’s gross margin is expected to be within the range of 34.2% to 34.5% compared to 2024 gross margin of 33.8%.