Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) stock soared on Friday following the release of the pharmacy operator’s Fiscal Q1 2025 earnings report. It starts strong with an adjusted earnings per share of 51 cents, beating Wall Street’s estimate of 38 cents. That’s despite EPS dropping 22.7% year-over-year due to lower U.S. retail sales this quarter and sale-leaseback gains in Fiscal Q1 2024.
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Another highlight in the earnings report is Walgreens’ revenue of $39.5 billion. That’s another beat compared to analysts’ revenue estimate of $37.4 billion for the quarter. It’s also a 7.5% increase year-over-year, which the company attributes to sales growth across all business segments.
Today’s earnings report has investors celebrating a 14.97% gain for WBA stock during pre-market trading. That erases a 4.65% drop yesterday and helps offset the stock’s 58.49% decrease over the last year.
Walgreens Maintains Fiscal 2025 Guidance
Walgreens still expects adjusted EPS for Fiscal 2025 to range from $1.40 to $1.80. At a midpoint of $1.60 per share, this will likely beat Wall Street’s EPS estimate of $1.58 per share for the year. The company predicts growth in U.S. Healthcare and International, a decline in U.S. Retail Pharmacy, an increased adjusted effective tax rate, and decreased contributions from sale-leaseback and Cencora earnings this year.
Walgreens CEO Tim Wentworth also laid out the company’s plan for 2025. He said it will continue to focus on “stabilizing the retail pharmacy by optimizing our footprint, controlling operating costs, improving cash flow and continuing to address reimbursement models.”
Is WBA Stock a Buy, Sell, or Hold?
Turning to Wall Street, the analysts’ consensus rating for Walgreens is Hold based on two Buy, eight Hold, and three Sell ratings over the last three months. With that comes an average price target of $9.79, a high of $15, and a low of $7. This represents a potential 6.18% upside for WBA shares. Investors will note that analysts will likely update their Walgreens ratings following today’s earnings report.
