Estee Lauder tumbles 12% on big guidance as Asia rebound disappoints

Estee Lauder (NYSE:) shares are trading sharply lower on Wednesday after the company reported worse-than-expected results for its fiscal third quarter and significantly lowered its full-year profit outlook.

Estee Lauder reported an FQ3 of $0.47 on revenue of $3.75 billion while the analysts were looking for EPS of $0.51 on revenue of $3.73B. Overall, sales declined 12% as EMEA region revenue plunged 26% to $1.47B.

“In the context of a quarter which we anticipated to be challenging, we are pleased to have delivered the high-end of our outlook for the third quarter of fiscal 2023,” said Fabrizio Freda, president and chief executive officer.

The company now expects its FY profit to be in the range of $3.29-3.39, down from the prior forecast of $4.87-5.02, and below the consensus of $4.96.

“Our developed and emerging markets grew strongly and exceeded our expectations to offset an even slower-than-expected recovery in Asia travel retail. Each of The Americas and Asia/Pacific returned to organic sales growth, bolstered by increases in the United States and China, while the markets of EMEA continued to prosper,” Freda added.

The CEO added that a rebound in Asia travel is “far more volatile than we expected,” hence the outlook cut to reflect “significantly greater headwinds in fourth quarter than we expected in February.”

Vital Knowledge analysts said the EPS report is “particularly disappointing as most assumed EL would be a big beneficiary of the China recovery (that clearly isn’t benefiting them, at least not yet).”

Goldman Sachs analysts added that the company delivered “a rare miss.”

“Concerns that EL’s weakness this year is underpinned by weakening brand health and share losses will likely build on the back of these results and we expect the stock to sell-off sharply as a result,” they said.