Staples Inc. Slowing sales, falling foot traffic in North American stores and penny-pinching customers combined to drag down second-quarter profit at the world's largest office-supply company by 16 percent, but a huge acquisition helped it to exceed revenue expectations.
Staples earned $150.2 million, or 21 cents per share, for the quarter ended Aug. 2, down from $178.8 million, or 25 cents per share, in the 2007 period. Analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call expected earnings of 21 cents per share on revenue of $4.69 billion.
Staples said sales jumped 18 percent to $5.07 billion from $4.29 billion during the same period last year. Excluding the benefit of its July acquisition of Dutch supply chain Corporate Express NV, sales rose 3 percent.
Still, same-store sales -- an important retail industry metric -- fell 7 percent in North America. Staples said sales of furniture, desktop computers, printers and digital cameras were weak.
Meanwhile, Staples said it expects earnings per share to grow in the low single-digits for the full year.
Staples' $2.7 billion Corporate Express acquisition is part of a move to expand delivery business in North America, as well as to enter new international markets.
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