10:18 AM EDT, 09/10/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Academy Sports & Outdoors (ASO) lowered its full-year sales outlook on Tuesday as the company's fiscal second-quarter revenue unexpectedly fell year over year.

The sporting goods retailer now expects sales to be in a range of about $5.9 billion to $6.08 billion for its fiscal 2024, down from its previous guidance of $6.07 billion to $6.35 billion. Comparable sales are set to be down 3% to 6% versus prior projections for a 4% decrease to a 1% gain. The consensus on Capital IQ is for revenue of $6.07 billion and a same-store sales decline of 3.2%.

"Sales for the second quarter were more challenging than expected, impacted by a tough economy, a temporary distribution center backlog related to going live with a new warehouse management system and by a very active storm season across key portions of our footprint," Chief Financial Officer Carl Ford said in a statement. "We will continue to manage expenses and inventory levels as we focus on driving topline growth."

Academy Sports projects adjusted earnings of between $5.75 and $6.50 per share for the ongoing fiscal year. It didn't provide an outlook for the metric alongside reporting fist-quarter results in June. The Street is looking for normalized EPS of $6.27.

For the quarter ended Aug. 3, the company's adjusted EPS fell 2.9% to $2.03, but topped analysts' $2.02 estimate. Sales slipped to $1.55 billion from $1.58 billion in the prior-year quarter, which was the Street's view for the most recent three-month period. Comparable sales dropped 6.9% versus the 4.1% decline modeled by the market.

Gross margin was 36.1% for the quarter, compared with 35.6% last year. "Our inventory discipline drove gross margin expansion of 50 basis points and a 5% reduction in units per store," Chief Executive Steve Lawrence said. The company opened one new store in the period and reaffirmed its plans to open 15 to 17 new locations this year.

"For the remainder of the year, we will focus on increasing traffic and conversion for our stores and website, by leveraging our improved targeted marketing capabilities, and expanding our new loyalty program," Lawrence said.

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