10:34 AM EDT, 03/28/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Walgreens Boots Alliance ( WBA ) lowered the high end of its full-year earnings outlook on Thursday, even though the drug-store operator reported stronger-than-expected fiscal second-quarter revenue.

The company now anticipates adjusted earnings to be in a range of $3.20 to $3.35 per share for fiscal 2024, compared with its prior projections of $3.20 to $3.50. The consensus among analysts on Capital IQ is for normalized EPS of $3.24.

"The updated range incorporates a challenging US retail environment, lower sale leaseback gains and reduced Cencora equity income," Chief Financial Officer Manmohan Mahajan said during an earnings call, according to a Capital IQ transcript. "On the tailwinds, we continue to see strong execution in our pharmacy services business, which has delivered results ahead of our initial plan to date."

For the quarter ended Feb. 29, adjusted EPS came in at $1.20, up from $1.16 the year before and topping the Street's view for $0.82. On a GAAP basis, the company swung to a per-share loss of $6.85 from earnings of $0.81 in the prior-year quarter, as it recorded a $5.8 billion after-tax goodwill impairment charge tied to the primary-care network VillageMD.

Sales advanced 6.3% to $37.05 billion, ahead of analysts' $35.83 billion estimate. Revenue in the US retail pharmacy segment rose 4.7% to $28.86 billion, while comparable sales climbed 4.8%. Same-store pharmacy sales gained 8.7%, benefiting from higher branded drug inflation and "strong execution" in pharmacy services, Walgreens said. Retail revenue and the segment's comparable sales declined 4.5% and 4.3%, respectively.

International sales rose 6.6% to $6.02 billion boosted by a favorable currency impact of 3.4%. US healthcare revenue surged to $2.18 billion from $1.63 billion on an annual basis.

"We're encouraged by our first-quarter of US Healthcare positive adjusted (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) and continued topline growth alongside another quarter of strong execution in pharmacy," Chief Executive Tim Wentworth said in a statement. "We remain confident in our goal of achieving $1 billion in cost savings this year."

Price: 20.74, Change: -0.28, Percent Change: -1.33