Walgreens Boots Alliance’s quarterly profit and sales beat analysts’ estimates on Wednesday, as the drugstore chain filled more prescriptions and kept costs down.
Shares of the Deerfield, Illinois-based company rose 4.8 percent to $69.11 in premarket trading.
The drug retailer also lifted its full-year adjusted earnings forecast to between $5.85 and $6.05 per share from $5.45 to $5.70 per share, reflecting benefits from changes to the U.S. tax code.
Walgreens expects more than $350 million in a cash tax benefit for fiscal year 2018, an increase of about $150 million from its previous estimate.
Same-store sales at Walgreens’ U.S. pharmacies rose 5.1 percent in the quarter. The company filled 269.2 million prescriptions, up 9.1 percent from a year ago.
Excluding items, Walgreens earned $1.73 per share. Net sales rose 12 percent to $33.02 billion.
Analysts on average were expecting a profit of $1.55 per share on revenue of $32.19 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Net income attributable to the company rose to $1.35 billion, or $1.36 per share, in the second quarter ended Feb. 28, from $1.06 billion, or 98 cents per share, a year earlier.
Be the first to comment