Dollar General 1Q EPS Tops Estimations

Dollar General Corporation DG announced 16.5 percent increase in the bottom line driven by 7.1 percent growth in the top line. Its earnings came in above the Street analysts' expectations. As a result, the stock traded more than 3 percent in the pre-market trading on Thursday. Dollar General reported 16.5 percent increase in profit to $295.12 million from $253.24 million while earnings advanced 22.6 percent to $1.03 a share from $0.84 a share in the year-ago quarter. The company's revenue for the first quarter grew 7.1 percent to $5.27 billion from $4.92 billion in the previous year quarter. Its same store sales witnessed 2.2 percent growth due to increases in both traffic and average transaction amount. Street analysts' expected the company to report earnings of $0.95 a share on revenue of $5.28 billion. Dollar General's CEO, Todd Vasos, reacted to the results to say, "Dollar General had a strong start to the year with our first quarter 2016 results. Compared to the first quarter of 2015, same-store sales improved 2.2%. We remained keenly focused on ensuring the effectiveness and efficiency of every aspect of our business as we delivered both gross margin expansion and selling, general and administrative expense leverage." He continued to add, "This balanced performance contributed to operating profit improvement of 12% and diluted earnings per share growth of 23%. We are confident in our opportunities for growth and remain committed to creating sustainable long-term shareholder value," said Todd Vasos, Dollar General's chief executive officer. Shares of the company traded 3.04 percent higher in the pre-market trading on Thursday.