OREANDA-NEWS. The Home Depot®, the world's largest home improvement retailer, today reported sales of $22.8 billion for the first quarter of fiscal 2016, a 9.0 percent increase from the first quarter of fiscal 2015. Comparable store sales for the first quarter of fiscal 2016 were positive 6.5 percent, and comp sales for U.S. stores were positive 7.4 percent.

Net earnings for the first quarter of fiscal 2016 were $1.8 billion, or $1.44 per diluted share, compared with net earnings of $1.6 billion, or $1.21 per diluted share, in the same period of fiscal 2015. For the first quarter of fiscal 2016, diluted earnings per share increased 19.0 percent from the same period in the prior year.

"We were pleased with our stronger than expected start to the year, driven by solid execution and broad-based growth across the store," said Craig Menear, chairman, CEO and president. "This was made possible by our hard working associates and their continued dedication to our customers in a quarter marked by week-to-week demand spikes caused by weather variability."

Updated Fiscal 2016 Guidance

The Company raised its fiscal 2016 sales guidance and now expects sales will be up approximately 6.3 percent and comp sales will be up approximately 4.9 percent. The Company also raised its diluted earnings-per-share guidance for the year and now expects diluted earnings per share to grow approximately 14.8 percent from fiscal 2015 to $6.27.

The Home Depot will conduct a conference call today at 9 a.m. ET to discuss information included in this news release and related matters. The conference call will be available in its entirety through a webcast and replay at earnings.homedepot.com.

At the end of the first quarter, the Company operated a total of 2,275 retail stores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, 10 Canadian provinces and Mexico. The Company employs more than 385,000 associates. The Home Depot's stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: HD) and is included in the Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor's 500 index.