Massive drop in earnings

Home Depot has been far more severely affected by the US real estate and mortgage crisis than its rival Lowe’s. Reporting on the 2007 trading year, the company announced a sales decline of 2.1 per cent to US $ 77.349 bn (€ 51.484 bn), and a 23.7 per cent drop in earnings to US $ 4.395 bn (€ 2.786 bn). Like-for-like sales for the completed year were down by 6.7 per cent. For the fourth quarter Home Depot disclosed a sales increase of 1.5 per cent to US $ 17.659 bn (€ 11.748 bn), though like-for-like sales were 8.3 per cent down. When compared with the previous trading year, earnings fell by 27.5 per cent to US $ 671 mio (€ 447 mio). At the end of 2007 the group had 2 234 stores in operation, with 1 950 Home Depot DIY stores in the USA, 165 in Canada, 66 in Mexico and 12 in China.