By Dhirendra Tripathi
Investing.com – Walgreens (NASDAQ:WBA) was up more than 2% in Thursday’s premarket trading as the company raised its guidance for earnings growth to around 10% for the fiscal year, thanks to higher sales at its pharmacies in a solid third quarter
The drug store operator reported third quarter profit of $1.38 per share, beating the consensus estimate of $1.15 a share.
Revenue of $34.03 billion too was higher than the $33.49 billion forecast as prescription volumes rebounded. It also benefited from the administration of Covid-19 vaccine jabs.
WBA used part of the proceeds from the $6.5 billion sale of Alliance Healthcare businesses to retire $3.3 billion in debt. It said it will deploy the remaining money to accelerate growth of its core retail pharmacy and healthcare businesses.
The company said more people are using its digital platform, Walgreens Find Care, the last quarter’s traffic driven mostly by COVID-19 testing and vaccinations.
It’s membership program added 19 million people during the quarter to take its size to 75 million. The company said it is on track to deliver more than $2 billion in annual cost savings by the end of the next fiscal year.