Lululemon says the holiday season was better than expected, raising revenue and earnings guidance.

Lululemon It raised its fourth-quarter earnings and revenue guidance on Monday after seeing a strong response from shoppers during the all-important holiday season.

The athletic apparel company now expects sales to rise between 11% and 12% to between $3.56 billion and $3.58 billion, up from a previous range of $3.48 billion and $3.51 billion.

Barring the company having an additional fiscal week in the fourth quarter of 2024, Lululemon expects sales to grow between 6% and 7%.

The company also raised its profit outlook. Lululemon is now forecasting fourth-quarter earnings per share of between $5.81 and $5.85, compared to previous guidance of between $5.56 and $5.64. It expects gross margins to fall between 0.2 and 0.3 percentage points after an earlier forecast of a 0.3 percentage point increase.

Shares rose about 4 percent in premarket trading.

“During the holiday season, our guests responded well to our product offerings, allowing us to increase our fourth-quarter guidance,” finance chief Meghan Frank said in a statement.

Lululemon issued its guidance ahead of the annual ICR conference in Orlando, when some of America’s leading retailers are expected to announce preliminary holiday results and meet with investors and analysts about their performance. . The conference brings together Wall Street’s biggest banks, law firms, private equity firms and investors and is known for early-year deal-making and retailer performance.

Lululemon Carefully guided holidays. While reporting fiscal third quarter earnings in December. The company’s outlook was largely in line with expectations, but Frank told analysts that executives were planning the business “in a prudent manner.” Short holiday shopping season and “uncertain macro environment.”

“While we feel good about the start of the holiday season, we still have big volume weeks ahead of us,” CEO Calvin McDonald added at the time. “Given the holiday shopping season, we continue to be thoughtful in our planning for the quarter as a whole.”

Overall, the holiday shopping season was not expected to produce the number of setbacks that have become common since the Covid-19 pandemic. The National Retail Federation said it expects sales to pick up in the middle. 2.5% and 3.5%. When inflation is taken into account, there was real growth. Expected to be minimal..

Still, some early readings have indicated that the holiday season may be in. A little better More than expected

Retail sales for the holiday season in the U.S., excluding automotive sales, A year-on-year increase of 3.8 percent. Between Nov. 1 and Dec. 24, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse, which measures in-store and online sales across payment types.