A+ for A&F: CE Data Reflects Abercrombie & Fitch’s Total Revenue Beat

Market Hit: New CE Vantage Proprietary Data Blending of U.S. and EUR Datasets Accurately Reflects Abercrombie & Fitch’s Total Revenue Beat

As market watchers await indicators of the health of the holiday shopper, CE’s U.S. and EUR Transact data accurately reflected ANF’s sizable Q3 revenue beat. The result mirrors comments that retailers with the best brand awareness and perception may prove the most resilient in a tougher holiday shopping season. CE Transact data can provide investor and corporate users with comprehensive breakouts from an industry level down to the individual merchant, showcasing which retailers are standing out in their space.

In addition to helping investors forecast company-reported sales growth, CE data transaction is leveraged by our corporate clients to gain timely insight into the competitive landscape across consumer industries. In today’s report, we highlight the utility of CE data for apparel retailers.

Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) Revenue Growth

Family apparel retailer Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) recently reported Total Revenue growth up 20% YoY, close to CE’s Vantage forecast figure of 20.7% (using CE’s U.S. and EUR datasets) and significantly ahead of consensus estimates of up 11.5%. The company also beat revenue estimates across their reporting segments.

The Importance of Brand Equity: ANF Growth vs. Competitors

ANF’s revenue beats come in the middle of a discourse around the resiliency of the American shopper, a particularly salient topic given the ongoing holiday shopping season. As different indicators point to conflicting trends, management teams have voiced concerns of muted consumer spending through the end of the year, especially in the apparel space. In an attempt to parse out what is happening behind the curtain, some observers have hypothesized that apparel retailers with the best brand equity/awareness will see the greatest resilience, at the expense of their peers.

*Represents yoy month-in-progress growth on a same-number-of-days basis.

Abercrombie & Fitch’s recent print and CE’s Transact data would seem to bear this out, with strongly branded, heavily advertised merchants like Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF), Lululemon (LULU), and Victoria’s Secret & Co (VSCO) outpacing the broader apparel industry in the back half of this year.

Consumer Edge is the leading provider of alternative data for consumer spending behavior, and the only provider of global revenue signals. If you’d like to benefit from using Transact US or other products for department stores, retail in general, and other industry data year-round to track trends and market hits like these, reach out to insights@staging.consumer-edge.com.