The Estée Lauder Cos. Inc. is withdrawing previous financial guidance because of the increasing severity of the coronavirus pandemic.
The company put out a statement Wednesday saying that guidance for the second half of the fiscal year "reflected the best information available to us at the time, as well as our best estimates about the pace of recovery of our then-impacted businesses."
"However, most retail stores in North America and Europe are now closing, as our global business is more broadly impacted by COVID-19 than we initially expected. As a result, we are withdrawing our previous guidance that we no longer expect to meet. We expect to provide an update regarding the impacts of COVID-19 on our business and our recovery plans when we report our next earnings scheduled for May 1, 2020," Lauder president and chief executive officer Fabrizio Freda said in a statement.
Lauder previously guided between 0 and 1 percent net sales increases for the second half of the fiscal year. Lauder has derived much of its growth in the past few years from China and travel retail, which were both hit as COVID-19 spread.
When Lauder first projected the guidance, COVID-19 was mostly confined to Asia. It later spread through Europe and the U.S., where store closures are now widespread across beauty and fashion.
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