Home Depot CEO pleased with Q2

It’s no wonder The Home Depot CEO Frank Blake was smiling wide in his ALS Ice Bucket Challenge video. He and his leadership team were about to report second quarter net earnings in excess of $2 billion.

“We saw broad based growth in the quarter across all of our geographies,” Blake said during the company’s second quarter earnings call Tuesday morning.

Net earnings came in at $2.050 billion, up 14.2% from the same quarter last year. That’s the highest second quarter haul in the company’s history.

Some of Blake’s other points revealing strength in the business:

• All three U.S. divisions poste mid-single digit comps;

• Every region showed positive comps; and

* The Homedepot.com business saw sales growth of 38%;

All of the above were achieved despite strong performances in the year-ago period, he said.

Home Depot’s installation services business had a strong quarter, as the retailer saw an acceleration of big-ticket transactions. 

“While our year got off to a slow start because of the late spring, we ended the first half with sales in line with our original expectations,” he said. 

Describing the housing market as “a modest tailwind for our business,” Blake added that home price appreciation is an important positive for Home Depot’s business. “Price appreciation is not setting the pace of last year, but it is still going in a positive direction,” he said.

Home Depot reported second quarter net sales of $23.8 billion, up 5.7%. Comp-store sales were positive 5.8%.