Updated 4:08 p.m. ET Dec. 5
Victoria’s Secret’s top line grew almost twice as fast as Wall Street expected for the third quarter, giving the company’s turnaround a boost.
Sales increased 9 percent to $1.5 billion for the quarter ended Nov. 1, where analysts forecast a growth of just 4.6 percent, according to Yahoo Finance.
Hillary Super, the former Savage x Fenty executive who jumped to Victoria’s Secret to become chief executive officer in September 2024, said her team was really starting to gel, working on product, the shopping experience and creative marketing.
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“It’s never one of those things,” Super told WWD in an interview. “It’s always all those and I think it’s the power of all of those things together.”
The customer “reactivated” she said and the business grew market share with strength seen across channels and around the world.
“It just feels really good,” Super said.
Investors agreed and sent shares of Victoria’s Secret up 18 percent to $49.06 on Friday, giving the company a market capitalization of $3.9 billion.
One telling sign for the quarter was that a good deal of the company’s new market share gains came from off-price, according to the CEO. That suggests that, with a little savvier marketing and some extra focus on product, Victoria’s Secret can keep shoppers from obsessing on only value.
But the good vibes are just starting to fall to the bottom line, with remains in the red.
Net losses narrowed to $37 million from $56 million a year earlier. And adjusted earnings per share tallied 27 cents, 32 cents better than the 59 percent deficit analysts forecast, according to Yahoo Finance.
Adjusted operating income broke even — better than the $35 million to $55 million loss forecast by the company earlier and the loss of $28 million a year ago.
On a conference call with analysts, Super said: “In the quarter, our intimates business returned to growth, up midsingle digits, resulting in us gaining over 1 percent share in the U.S. intimates market. Additionally, a big unlock for the quarter was customer acquisition. Before I arrived, there was not enough focus here and, as a result, our active customer base was shrinking. We have made reversing that trend a priority. For the first time this year, our total customer file grew and, importantly, we saw growth coming from an increase in new customers.”
Pink, she said, had an “outstanding” quarter with double-digit sales growth.
“When we first started talking about the Pink apparel opportunity, we had shared that, at one point, it was about 70-ish percent of the business and it had gone all the way down to mid-30s. It’s now above 40 percent and climbing,” the CEO said. “We think ultimately it’s somewhere in between 50 percent and 60 percent of the total Pink business. And we are extremely pleased. It was the leading category in the Pink business in Q3. We saw that much higher [average unit retail prices], a lower discount rate. It was just a very solid business.”
Victoria’s Secret also has a nearly $1 billion beauty business in North America and sees the category as a key growth driver.
Both the namesake and Pink businesses saw a boost from the livestreamed, megawatt runway show in October.
“We have over 60 million views, 50 billion impressions,” Super said, in the interview of the show’s broader media impact.
After a hiatus of several years, Victoria’s Secret went back to the runway in 2024 and the CEO said the team learned from that first outing, turned around, applied those learnings and made the show “even more powerful” this year.
“The focus with Victoria’s Secret is really sharpening what sexy is today for us and what that feels like and the fashion show’s really the beginning of that journey,” she said.
Pink was the star for the quarter and Super said the brand has a bigger opportunity in intimates than she initially thought.
In the still-developing category is Adore Me, the brand Super’s predecessor bought for $400 million in early 2023.
The CEO said new management was recently put in place at Adore Me and that the opportunity there was still being determined.
For the full year, Victoria’s Secret raised its sales forecast, up to a range of $6.45 billion to $6.48 billion, above the $6.33 billion to $6.41 billion projected earlier.
Adjusted earnings per share is expected to range from $2.40 to $2.65, compared to prior guidance of $1.80 to $2.20 and the $2.12 analysts forecast.
That outlook includes a roughly $90 million hit from new tariffs this year.
Retail is clearly multifaceted to Super — and a team sport, where leaders are meant to interact often and come together to push the business forward.
“We’re seeing real consistency across the board,” Super said. “It’s not one month or one activity, it’s really everything working in concert. We’re being conservative on postholiday because we just don’t know where the consumer’s going to be.
“[But] there’s nothing that I’m seeing in the business that tells me that we don’t have the right strategy, we are going down the list and we are seeing measurable results in every strategy,” she said. “I feel confident that we have the team and can execute this.”
Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, said, “There is a lot to like about Victoria’s Secret and there is a lot of potential for the company to regain market share in the quarters and years ahead.
“One of the most effective changes that management put in place early on is the renewed focus on innovation,” Saunders said. “As a specialist, Victoria’s Secret should be about producing and delivering great products that are comfortable and make a difference to the customer. In a category like bras there is huge scope for this due to the technicalities of fit, form and function. In recent years, we believe that Victoria’s Secret dimmed its prowess in this arena, and suffered as a result. However, current leadership is bringing this back into the heart of the business with solutions like FlexFactor. Ultimately, better innovation helps to cement Victoria’s Secret as a destination, and it creates a stronger value proposition as the customer gets fashion and function in products.”