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Text: Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied as a result of various risks, uncertainties and important factors, including those discussed in the risk factors, MD&A and other sections of our annual report on Form 10-K and our other SEC filings.
Additionally, we will be discussing certain non-GAAP financial measures.
In recognition of the efforts and the unique challenges posed by the pandemic, we invested over $100 million in incremental financial assistance for our frontline hourly associates in the quarter, which brought our total COVID-related support for hourly associates to over $900 million for the year.
We remain laser-focused on our highest priority, which has always been protecting the health and safety of our associates and communities.
And in the quarter, we invested $65 million in support of store safety protocols and our communities.
For the year, we invested nearly $1.3 billion in COVID-related support for our associates, store safety and our communities.
Now turning to our results.
For the quarter, we delivered total company comparable sales growth of 28% over the prior year and 41% growth in adjusted diluted earnings per share to $1.33.
Those results cap off a fiscal 2020 where comp sales increased 26% and adjusted earnings per share grew 54% to $8.86.
Looking at the fourth-quarter results from a geographic perspective in the U.S., growth was broad-based, with comparable sales growth exceeding 19% across all 15 geographic regions and exceeding 25% for all U.S. divisions.
On lowes.com, sales grew 121% as customers shifted more of their shopping online, especially over the holiday season.
We continue to enhance our omnichannel retailing capabilities in store operations, on Lowes.com and across our supply chain, with our goal to meet customer demand to shop however, whenever and wherever they choose.
Once again, DIY comps outpaced Pro comps in the quarter, driven by consumer mindset that remains focused on the home.
During the pandemic, the home has come to serve four primary purposes: a residence, a home school, a home office and the primary location for recreation and entertainment.
In addition to the strength in the DIY customer, our continued focus on the Pro is a very important component of our total home market share acceleration strategy.
And Pro continues to show strong momentum, evidenced by the mid-20s comp in the quarter and nearly a 20% comp for the year.
Part of our Q4 success in Pro was driven by our steps to tailor our service offering for these busy customers, even redesigning the footprint of our stores to facilitate a fast, intuitive shopping experience for our small and medium-sized Pro.
Pros are rewarding our efforts with their repeat business, returning to shop our stores over and over again.
Looking forward, we're focused on further enhancing our service levels, both in-store and online, to meet the needs of our new and existing Pro customers.
Joe will discuss our efforts to grow market share in Pro later on the call.
Now turning to Canada.
We delivered comp growth in the mid-teens despite several COVID-related operating restrictions that went into effect during the quarter.
The new Canadian leadership team made tremendous progress in 2020 and remains focused on improving operational efficiency by executing a retail fundamentals playbook to drive greater labor productivity and improve gross margins.
And as I mentioned earlier, we're gaining traction with our new Total Home strategy, which is our commitment at Lowe's to provide everything a customer needs for their home.
As an example, during the quarter, we quickly pivoted from a successful holiday Season of Savings event to launch two events to support our Total Home strategy in January, a home organization event and a bath event.
During the home organization event, we provided our customers with storage solutions for their home and garages, freeing up valuable space for other activities.
The bath event helped our customers find everything they need from paint to fixtures to toilets and tubs and even towels to upgrade their bathrooms.
And for the customers who didn't want to do-it-yourself, we provided installation services.
Truly a total home solution for a dream bathroom.
Both events helped us to close out the fourth quarter with very strong sales in January.
Looking forward, I am confident we're making the right investments to leverage our Total Home strategy, while we shift our focus from retail fundamentals to accelerating our efforts to gain market share.
As a reminder, our Total Home strategy will drive market share acceleration by enhancing our investments in Pro, online, installation services, localization and elevating our product assortment.
We are confident that these initiatives will allow us to drive sustainable market share growth as we deliver a total home solution for our Pro and DIY customers.
Before I close, I'd like to once again extend my heartfelt appreciation to our associates for their dedication to serving our communities in this time of need.
Doing the most challenging personal and professional year in many of our lives, our associates made enormous sacrifices for our customers and communities.
And I'm very pleased that the marketplace is taking notice as reflected by Fortune magazine recently recognizing Lowe's as the No.
1 Most Admired Specialty Retailer, bestowing that honor on Lowe's for the first time in 17 years.
We're humbled by the recognition, but we also know that 2021 will be a very unpredictable year.
and Canada, we continue to grapple with numerous challenges presented by COVID-19.
And although the business environment remains uncertain, we're confident that we will continue to drive market share gains and operating efficiency.
Also, our newly developed operational agility allows us to quickly respond to a wide range of potential macro outcomes in 2021.
And we will not lose focus on our No.
1 priority, which is supporting the health and safety of our associates and our customers.
We delivered U.S. home improvement comparable sales growth of 28.6% in the fourth quarter.
And consistent with the trends we've seen since the second quarter, growth was broad-based across both DIY and Pro customers, in-store and online and across all merchandising departments.
In fact, all 15 merchandising departments generated positive comps of over 16%.
Great execution, combined with our compelling product offering of well-known national brands, balanced with high-value private brands, ensured that we were well positioned to meet the continued elevated demand for home-related projects during the quarter.
Lumber was once again the top performer, driven by strong unit demand across Pro and DIY customers, as well as commodity inflation.
Our merchants and our supply chain teams did an exceptional job in working with our vendor partners to keep up with demand and to ensure that our stores were stocked with job lot quantities.
Several other categories posted comps above 30%, including building materials, which was driven by strong demand for roofing and gutters.
An improved level of in-stock and an exceptional customer service have allowed us to continue to grow our Pro business in these Pro-focused building product categories.
Our seasonal and outdoor living, lawn and garden and paint categories also delivered comps above 30% in the quarter, reflecting the consumers' continued focus on the home.
Our seasonal and outdoor living team delivered a successful holiday season with a holiday trim a tree program that exceeded the customers' expectations.
The team also leveraged our selection in key brands to drive strong sales in grills, patio heaters and fire pits, as these categories were strong throughout the quarter as consumers continue to enjoy their outdoor spaces.
Outdoor power equipment was driven by sales of chore-related product, such as snowblowers, generators and pressure washers, as customers navigated the weather and worked to maintain their outdoor areas.
Continuing the theme of enhancing the outdoors, we saw strength in lawn and garden, with notable outperformance in holiday-related live nursery, along with growth in hardscapes, outdoor planters and cleaning products.
And finally, our paint category also continued its strong performance with both interior and exterior stains delivering strong comps as the weather early in the quarter remained favorable.
Now turning to our online results.
As Marvin mentioned, we delivered sales growth of 121% on lowes.com, our third consecutive quarter with over 100% comps online.
And during the quarter, we continued to enhance the user experience as we simplified the search and checkout features to speed up the process for customers shopping online.
And we are also now working on replatforming LowesForPros to the cloud to be completed in the first half of this year, which will significantly enhance the features that we offer to these time-pressed customers and then further build out our loyalty with the Pro.
As we discussed last quarter, we have been resetting the layout of our U.S. stores with approximately 95% of our resets now complete.
We expect to drive greater sales productivity per square foot by achieving three key objectives with this investment.
First, driving Pro sales through a more intuitive and faster shopping experience as we've now placed relevant products adjacent to each other and added a Pro flex area for grab-and-go products at the front of the store.
Second, increasing our localized product assortment by eliminating unproductive bays without planograms or what we call junk bays, which now opens up space for new products, better tailored to the local market.
And then finally, third, driving more transactions by moving the basket-building category of cleaning products to the main power aisle of the store.
We're confident that our stores are now easier to shop for both Pro and DIY customers, which positions us well to accelerate our market share gains.
I'd like to offer my sincere appreciation to all the teams across the company who work so diligently to execute on this strategic initiative in such a short period of time.
We also continue to elevate our brand and product offerings.
We are continuing to build on our position as the leading appliance retailer in the U.S. with the addition of Midea and Hisense appliances to our stores.
And Lowe's will soon become the exclusive home improvement provider of Mansfield plumbing products.
This addition will make Lowe's the only home improvement retailer to offer customers the top three toilet brands in the U.S.: Kohler, American Standard and Mansfield.
As we transition to spring, we're in a great position to safely serve customers, and our teams have already been preparing by completing our new spring sets as we anticipate the arrival of the season around the country.
Leveraging our leading position in outdoor power equipment, we have a wide selection from EGO, the top-selling brand in battery-powered OPE, to John Deere, CRAFTSMAN, Husqvarna, Honda and Aaron's.
In addition, we will have a terrific selection of patio furniture, including our refreshed allen + roth patio program, complemented by a wide array of grills as we continue to leverage the two leading brands in outdoor grilling, Weber and Char-Broil.
We're confident that our products will inspire customers that are looking to upgrade their outdoor space, which we think will continue to remain a retreat for many this spring season.
We're continuing to make changes to improve traffic flow within our outdoor garden centers to ensure social distancing while shopping, as well as showcasing inspirational vignettes and utilizing enhanced vendor support, all of which will drive a great spring season in lawn and garden.
And finally, we are excited to deliver new innovation in flooring with the launch of Pergo WetProtect technology available in laminate, engineered wood and rigid luxury vinyl, and offering guaranteed protection for both the flooring and subflooring.
This new level of total moisture protection is a great Lowe's exclusive product that will provide peace of mind for consumers and further differentiate our flooring offering.
This spring, we will demonstrate to consumers that we provide everything they need to make their homes and backyards functional and safe, a reflection of our Total Home strategy.
I'm looking forward to sharing more with you about our reimagined approach to spring on our next call.
This past year presented challenges that few of us could have imagined.
Lowe's has always been at the forefront in responding to crisis in our communities, and our associates rose to the challenge once again in 2020.
In recognition of the outstanding efforts of our associates, in January, we announced a bonus of $300 for each full-time associate and $150 for each part-time associate.
This $80 million bonus brought the total COVID-related assistance to our associates to over $900 million in 2020.
And I could not be more pleased to announce today that for the fourth quarter in a row, 100% of our stores are under "Winning Together" profit-sharing bonus totaling $90 million.
And because of their efforts, once again exceeded expectations, this represents an incremental $30 million over the target payment level.
And we're supporting our communities again through hiring as we bring on more than 50,000 seasonal and full-time retail associates this spring to ensure that our customers get the exceptional service they expect from Lowe's.
This builds on the more than 90,000 associates hired into permanent roles over the past year.
2020 changed the way the customers shop with Lowe's.
Nowhere is this more evident than the 111% sales growth on Lowes.com for the year.
And with roughly 60% of these online orders fulfilled in our stores, we needed to dramatically expand our fulfillment capabilities to support this increased demand.
We began by rapidly rolling out curbside pickup in the first quarter, and then we began to launch touchless BOPIS lockers in our stores a few months later.
We now have BOPIS lockers in over 1,200 stores with the goal of rolling out lockers to all U.S. stores by April.
Providing multiple contactless pickup options for our customers, we are meeting consumer demands to shop Lowe's in whatever way they choose.
And we've continued to enhance the mobile app to improve the customer pickup experience.
This quarter, we began rolling out geofencing technology that alerts our stores when customers are on their way to pick up their orders, enabling quicker fulfillment when they arrive at the store.
Last quarter, we announced that we were standing up dedicated fulfillment teams to handle all in-store fulfillment orders.
All of these enhancements from the easy-to-use BOPIS lockers and the new geofencing technology, to the focus on the fulfillment teams, have already driven improvements in customer satisfaction and speed of service.
Importantly, the fulfillment teams are also improving productivity as they leverage enhancements that we've made to the picking app.
This is evidenced by a dramatic reduction in the number of hours needed to fulfill orders for pickup.
In fact, we can now fulfill orders six times faster on average than one year ago.
Now let's turn to our performance with the Pro.
As Marvin mentioned, we delivered mid-20s comps in the fourth quarter.
We continue to enhance our Pro loyalty offering by providing Pros with the tools they need to get the job done.
This time of the year, our Pros are focused on not only their project pipeline, but they also need to close their books just like any other business.
As a true partner to the Pro, we are now providing our Pro loyalty members with a $100 discount on TurboTax.
Our Pro loyalty members can also export up to 24 months of transaction history, expediting their year-end close process.
It's value-added offers like these that truly differentiate our Pro loyalty offering.
Throughout 2020, we continue to raise the bar on our offering for the Pro, with better service levels, the right brands and products and the job lot quantities they need.
Every day, we are demonstrating that Lowe's is executing our commitment to be the new home for Pros, which is reflected in the strong repeat rates that we're earning from new and existing customers.
And I'm looking forward to building on this momentum as we continue to grow our Pro penetration.
And one way that will drive greater Pro penetration is through our newly launched Pro customer relationship management, or CRM tool.
Rolled out to all stores in late January, this new technology provides our Pro desk with the tools to manage, grow and retain Pro accounts through consistent and data-driven selling actions.
We will also be able to associate any transaction regardless of tender type to a specific Pro account, allowing us for better record-keeping for their business.
Store associate training is currently under way, and we expect that the targeted outreach enabled by this tool will facilitate stronger and more personal relationships with our Pro customers.
Over the past few years, the store operations team has made considerable strides in improving productivity in our stores, with technology enhancements that free up our associates to spend more time in the aisles serving customers.
As we move into 2021, we are kicking off a new productivity initiative in-store operations that we are calling our perpetual productivity improvement, or PPI.
This key productivity initiative will play a critical role in our continued multiyear improvement in operating profit.
Through PPI, we will leverage new processes and technology to deliver continuous productivity enhancements.
Some of the most significant technology initiatives under PPI are modernized checkout infrastructure, industry-leading in-store workforce management tools, new touchscreen POS, expanded rollout of digital signs, incremental functionality deployed to the handheld devices and enhanced store inventory management systems, to name a few.
These perpetual productivity improvements will help us to move toward our multiyear goal of achieving $2.5 billion to $2.7 billion in store opex productivity that we set at the December investor update.
I look forward to updating you on the progress we are making toward these important productivity initiatives on future calls.
In fiscal 2020, we generated $9.3 billion in free cash flow driven by outstanding operating performance, and we returned $6.7 billion to our shareholders through both a combination of share repurchases and dividends.
During the fourth quarter alone, we paid $452 million in dividends at $0.60 per share.
We also repurchased 21.1 million shares for $3.4 billion at an average price of approximately $160 a share.
This brings the total to $5 billion in share repurchases for the year.
We have approximately $20 billion remaining on our share repurchases authorization and plan to utilize our strong cash flow to drive significant long-term shareholder value.
Capital expenditures totaled $619 million in the quarter and $1.8 billion for the full year as we invest in the business to support our strategic growth initiatives.
We ended 2020 with $4.7 billion of cash and cash equivalents on the balance sheet.
And along with $3 billion in undrawn capacity on our revolving credit facility, we have immediate access to $7.7 billion in funds.
We remain confident that we have ample liquidity to navigate any unforeseen circumstances.
At the end of the fiscal year, our adjusted debt-to-EBITDA ratio stands at 2.2 times.
Now I'd like to turn to the income statement.
In Q4, we generated GAAP diluted earnings per share of $1.32 compared to $0.66 last year, an increase of 100%.
In the quarter, there was a very modest impact on operating income related to the previously announced Canadian restructuring.
Now my comments from this point forward will include certain non-GAAP comparisons where applicable.
In Q4, we delivered adjusted diluted earnings per share of $1.33, an increase of 41% compared to the prior year.
These results were driven by higher-than-expected sales volume reflecting a continued consumer focus on the home, a modest benefit from the next round of government stimulus checks as well as strong execution across our operations.
Operating margin improved in the quarter as our strong focus on cost control and productivity continued to pay dividends.
Q4 sales were $20.3 billion, driven by a comparable sales increase of 28.1%.
This was due to comparable store average ticket growth of 14.2% and transaction growth of 13.9%, with strong repeat rates from both new and existing customers.
Commodity inflation drove a benefit of approximately 300 basis points to comps in the quarter as lumber continues to experience rising prices.
U.S. comp sales were up 28.6% in the quarter.
And consistent with our results for the past few quarters, growth was well balanced across both DIY and Pro customers, selling channels, merchandise departments and geographies.
Our U.S. monthly comps accelerated through the quarter, were 23.8% in November, 28% in December and 35.7% in January.
As Marvin mentioned, the company pivoted quickly from a strong holiday selling season in late December to launch bath and home organization events in early January.
January sales also benefited modestly from the second round of government stimulus.
Adjusted gross margin was 31.8%, down eight basis points from last year.
Despite cycling over significant improvements last year in our process to more effectively manage product margin, product gross margin rate improved 125 basis points driven by continued execution on our pricing, cost management and promotional strategies.
We took a less promotional stance across all categories, including our focus on EDLP and appliances, which benefited margin in the quarter.
In addition, strong demand from holiday products led to good sell-through and minimal seasonal write-offs in Q4.
These benefits to adjusted gross margin were offset by 40 basis points of pressure from inventory shrink, 40 basis points of pressure from supply chain cost, 35 basis points of pressure from lumber installation and 20 basis points of pressure from lower credit revenue.
Adjusted SG&A of 22.3% levered 42 basis points to 2019.
As we anticipated, we incurred approximately $165 million of COVID-related expenses.
These investments included approximately $100 million in financial assistance for our frontline associates and approximately $60 million related to cleaning and other safety-related programs, as well as approximately $5 million in charitable contributions.
These $165 million of COVID-related expenses negatively impacted SG&A leverage by approximately 80 basis points.
As expected, we incurred approximately $150 million in the U.S. stores reset project, which negatively impacted SG&A leverage by approximately 75 basis points.
As Bill mentioned, the resets have been completed in approximately 95% of our stores.
These incremental costs were offset by payroll leverage of approximately 105 basis points related to higher sales volume and improved store operating efficiencies, occupancy leverage of approximately 30 basis points and advertising leverage of approximately 25 basis points.
Adjusted operating income margin of 7.6% of sales for the quarter was up 41 basis points to the prior year as operational productivity improvements were offset somewhat by significant investments in our stores and supply chain to drive long-term growth.
In addition, increasing investments in short-lived technology and store fixture assets is resulting in higher levels of depreciation versus our historical run rate.
The adjusted effective tax was 25.8%.
The tax rate was slightly lower than expected due to better-than-anticipated performance of our Canadian business in Q4.
We continue to build up our inventory levels throughout the quarter to meet the sustained high levels of customer demand.
At year end, inventory was $16.2 billion, and lumber inflation increased inventory values by approximately $240 million.
Now before I close, let me talk about our current trends and how we're planning our business in '21.
Although February is the easiest comp this year, we are encouraged that the strong broad-based sales trends that we saw in the fourth quarter have continued this month, apart from the impact of the recent winter storms.
Looking at the balance of the year, our approach to 2021 remains consistent with how we outlined our planning at our December investor update.
Like many companies, we have limited visibility into future business trends.
It remains unclear when there will be a widespread availability of the COVID vaccine and whether there will be additional COVID-related restrictions like we're experiencing in the Canadian business today.
Given the near-term uncertainty, at our December investor update, we outlined three different market-based scenarios on how the mix-adjusted home improvement market might perform, be it weak, moderate or robust performance levels.
Keep in mind that our business is more heavily weighted in DIY and less penetrated in online than the broader market, both of which create modest downward pressure on the Lowe's home improvement market outlook.
These three market scenarios would result in total sales expectations ranging from $82 billion to $86 billion for the year.
While each scenario represents a top line decline from 2020 as we cycle this unprecedented industry growth, we continue to expect that our sales result will outperform the market as our initiatives are focused on delivering market share gains.
Additionally, in each scenario, we expect our adjusted operating margin to increase year over year, ranging from 11.2% to 12%, depending upon the demand environment.
And consistent with my comments at the investor update in December, embedded in each of these scenarios are the incremental investments in frontline associate wages and equity programs that totaled $1.4 billion through 2019 and 2020.
At the same time, we have implemented a slate of perpetual productivity initiatives that Joe mentioned earlier.
And we are investing to drive operational efficiencies in our business.
We will also lap significant nonrecurring spend from 2020.
While it's still very early in the year, we are seeing market trends essentially in line with the robust market scenario.
This scenario assumes the relevant home improvement market will experience a modest contraction this year, and our sales would approach $86 billion.
We will remain agile to react rapidly to any changes in the market, and we are able to quickly flex store labor, advertising and incentive comp expenses.
And consistent with what we outlined at Investor Day, we are expecting $9 billion in share repurchases this year.
Our repurchases activity should be roughly ratable by quarter but a little more concentrated in the first half of the year, given the robust cash flow generation driven by our spring selling season.
And we are planning for approximately $2 billion in capital expenditures in '21.
So in closing, we remain extremely excited about the future of our business and its ability to continue to deliver sustainable shareholder value.

user
q4 adjusted earnings per share $1.33.
q4 earnings per share $1.32.
q4 sales $20.3 billion versus refinitiv ibes estimate of $19.48 billion.
'delivered very strong financial results in q4 of 2020, with continued sales momentum in february'.
reiterating perspectives provided at december 9, 2020 investor update.
planning for $9 billion in share repurchases and $2 billion in capital expenditures in 2021.
qtrly total comparable sales increased 28.1 percent.comparable sales for u.s. home improvement business increased 28.6 percent for q4.

assistant