ULTA

In August 2026, Ulta Beauty reported higher second-quarter and six-month results, with sales rising to US$3,035.68 million and net income to US$282.01 million, and raised its full-year 2026 guidance for net sales growth, operating income growth, and diluted earnings per share. Alongside these results, Ulta Beauty continued to strengthen its assortment and partnerships, including expanded prestige hair care offerings such as CÉCRED, The Potion Studio, and Bio Ionic’s exclusive Jade Dream Collection, reinforcing its position in higher-end beauty and styling categories. Next, we’ll examine how Ulta Beauty’s raised 2026 earnings guidance, underpinned by prestige hair care momentum, affects its broader investment narrative. AI is about to change healthcare. These 38 stocks are working on everything from early diagnostics to drug discovery. The best part - they are all under $10b in market cap - there's still time to get in early. To own Ulta Beauty, you need to believe its broad beauty assortment, loyalty program, and omnichannel model can keep driving steady growth, even as costs and competition rise. The latest quarter’s higher sales and earnings, plus raised 2026 guidance, support that view in the near term, but they do not remove the key risk that rising store and labor costs, alongside shifting beauty spend online, could weigh on margins. The recent addition of The Potion Studio into over 450 Ulta stores and online is especially relevant here. It highlights how Ulta is leaning into exclusive, prestige hair care to deepen customer engagement and support higher-margin categories, which ties directly into the raised 2026 earnings guidance and the near term catalyst around expanding its differentiated assortment. Yet despite this strength, investors should be aware that rising fixed costs and e-commerce pressure could still... Read the full narrative on Ulta Beauty (it's free!) Ulta Beauty's narrative projects $14.9 billion revenue and $1.4 billion earnings by 2029. Uncover how Ulta Beauty's forecasts yield a $627.25 fair value, a 15% upside to its current price. Some of the lowest analysts were already cautious, assuming revenue of about US$14.7 billion and earnings of roughly US$1.3 billion by 2029, so this latest quarter may either soften their concerns about e-commerce margin pressure or reinforce their view that cost risks still loom large. Explore 8 other fair value estimates on Ulta Beauty - why the stock might be worth 41% less than the current price! Don't just follow the ticker - dig into the data and build a conviction that's truly your own. A great starting point for your Ulta Beauty research is our analysis highlighting 2 key rewards that could impact your investment decision. Our free Ulta Beauty research report provides a comprehensive fundamental analysis summarized in a single visual - the Snowflake - making it easy to evaluate Ulta Beauty's overall financial health at a glance. Opportunities like this don't last. These are today's most promising picks. Check them out now: Capitalize on the AI infrastructure supercycle with our selection of the 55 best 'picks and shovels' of the AI gold rush converting record-breaking demand into massive cash flow. Find 50 companies with promising cash flow potential yet trading below their fair value. Outshine the giants: these 19 early-stage AI stocks could fund your retirement. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Companies discussed in this article include ULTA. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email [email protected]

Ulta Beauty (ULTA) has drawn fresh attention after reporting second quarter results on 1 August 2026, with higher sales, net income, and earnings per share, along with raised full year earnings guidance and continued growth in prestige hair care. Over the past year, Ulta Beauty’s share price performance has been mixed, with a decline of 12.0% year to date. At the same time, the 1 month share price return of 6.4% and 3 month share price return of 15.8% point to improving momentum around its recent earnings beat, raised 2026 guidance, and new prestige hair care partnerships. The 1 year total shareholder return of 2.47% and 5 year total shareholder return of 43.85% underline a steadier longer term record. Compare Ulta Beauty's recent earnings momentum with other retailers showing similar strength by scanning our hand-picked list of 50 high quality undervalued stocks. After a 15.8% three month rebound and stronger guidance, Ulta Beauty now poses a simple question to buyers: does the current valuation still leave enough upside to justify the risks from here? Ulta Beauty’s most followed valuation narrative puts fair value at $627.25, above the last close of $545.66, framing the recent rebound as still leaving a pricing gap. Read the complete narrative. Want to understand why this narrative supports a higher fair value for Ulta Beauty? The core story leans on steady revenue gains, modest margin uplift, and a future earnings multiple that assumes investors stay willing to pay up for that growth profile. Result: Fair Value of $627.25 (UNDERVALUED) Have a read of the narrative in full and understand what's behind the forecasts. However, Ulta Beauty still faces pressure from rising store and wage costs, and the planned loss of the Target partnership could affect future earnings quality. Find out about the key risks to this Ulta Beauty narrative. While the most popular Ulta Beauty narrative points to a fair value of $627.25 and calls the stock undervalued, the current P/E of 19.3x tells a different story. It is higher than the US Specialty Retail industry at 18.5x and above a fair ratio of 16.5x, which suggests investors are already paying a premium that could compress if expectations soften. For a closer look at how this valuation compares across peers and the fair ratio, review the detailed breakdown in See what the numbers say about this price — find out in our valuation breakdown. If this mix of optimism and caution around Ulta Beauty leaves you on the fence, move quickly, review the data in detail, and weigh the 2 key rewards. If Ulta Beauty has sharpened your focus on quality, do not stop here. Broaden your watchlist now with ideas that match your risk tolerance and income goals. Target higher potential returns by scanning a focused pool of opportunities using the 22 elite penny stocks with strong financials. Prioritise resilience and capital protection by reviewing a 74 resilient stocks with low risk scores that aims to keep volatility in check. Hunt for overlooked quality by checking a 19 high quality undiscovered gems that many investors may not be watching yet. This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned. Companies discussed in this article include ULTA. Have feedback on this article? Concerned about the content? Get in touch with us directly. Alternatively, email [email protected]

Interested in Ulta Beauty Inc.? Here are five stocks we like better. Ulta Beauty beat earnings and revenue estimates and raised its fiscal 2027 guidance, yet shares initially sold off after the Aug. 27 report. Comparable sales growth of 3.8% marks a sharp deceleration from 6.7% a year earlier, and guidance suggests further slowing in the second half. Analysts remain divided, with Goldman Sachs and DA Davidson raising price targets while Bank of America and Barclays lowered theirs after the report. The retail sector took center stage last week with a bevy of earnings reports, and reactions were mixed, even though most companies beat estimates and raised outlooks. One prime example was Ulta Beauty Inc. (NASDAQ: ULTA). This $23 billion cosmetics colossus reported earnings after the market closed on Aug. 27. Healthy results across the board weren't enough to wow the market, and the stock sold off following the release before paring those losses over the next two sessions. → Boarding Call: EHang Secures First-Mover Altitude Even analysts are conflicted over the state of the business, so a deeper dive into the numbers is warranted to figure out where ULTA shares are headed next. Double beats and raises haven't always been enough to reward companies during the most recent quarter. Many top-line figures in the retail sector were juiced by tariff refunds, which are (hopefully!) a one-time boost that won't be recurring in Q3. Ulta largely escaped the tariff net, which means its Q2 fiscal year 2027 (FY2027) results aren't aided by a one-time cash influx. Earnings per share (EPS) totaled $6.55 in the period, ahead of the estimated $6.22. Revenue also beat estimates, growing 8.9% year over year (YOY), and the company raised its fiscal 2027 sales growth outlook to 6.7%-7.2%. Comp sales also grew 3.8% YOY, and operating income grew more than 10% to $379.6 million. → Medtronic’s Stars Are Aligning for a Price Recovery So why the tepid response to a genuinely good quarter? The first factor standing out is gross margin, which dipped from 39.2% to 39.1%. But that largely reflects last year's Space NK acquisition, a U.K. retailer with structurally lower economics. Operating margin actually improved 10 basis points (bps) YOY, so the margin story starts on flimsy ground. The real concern is growth, which the company's own projections show will slow in the coming months. Comp sales grew faster than expected in Q2 FY2027, but 3.8% growth is a stark drop from 6.7% a year ago. The full-year guide (3.2%-3.7%) also implies a further slowdown in the second half of the year to approximately 2% -3%, which equates to single-digit growth over a full fiscal year. Management is telling the market not to expect 2025 growth rates to persist into the second half of 2026 or 2027, hence the stock now trades at 18 times forward earnings. ULTA shares traded as high as 25 times earnings as recently as January, so this valuation stepdown feels more like a proper re-rating than unfair punishment. → Analysts See Major Upside for This Top-10 Performing S&P 500 Stock Additionally, it's worth reiterating what comp sales strip out: new stores and acquisitions. The gap between net sales outlook and comp sales expectations is supplied by the Space NK acquisition and 31 new store openings, the latter of which laps in the next reporting period. Investors are not buying the 8.9% headline revenue growth figure in the future, nor the 13.3% EPS growth. The 2024 buyback authorization program expires at the end of this year, and any further repurchase agreements will need board approval. Ulta will have bought back $3 billion worth of shares at the culmination of this program, and a lack of future buybacks will likely suppress the 13.3% EPS growth back toward the 10.1% operating income growth figure. If comps and buybacks continue to decline (and the company doesn't make another acquisition), the market could re-rate the stock even lower. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, which is why multiple stock analysis firms can view the same report and reach different conclusions. The day after the report, Goldman Sachs and DA Davidson raised their price targets, while Bank of America and Barclays Group lowered theirs. Even experts disagree, and the stock's price action reflects buyers' and sellers' conflicting motivations. ULTA shares are still down nearly 10% year-to-date (YTD), although the stock has recovered about half of its losses over the last three months. A Death Cross in early May put bulls on the defensive, but the Relative Strength Index (RSI) began trending up from Oversold levels shortly thereafter. The RSI re-entered bullish territory as the share price overtook the 50-day moving average, a resistance level not surpassed since early March. But now comes the tough part. The next earnings catalyst is still three months away, and the stock is now stuck between resistance at the 200-day moving average and support at the 50-day moving average. A break above the 200-day would be a strong signal that the uptrend is resuming, but if the RSI dips back under 50, it could mean another long period of range-bound trading ahead of fiscal Q3 results. The article "Ulta Beauty’s Earnings Beat Was Stronger Than the Stock’s Reaction" was originally published by MarketBeat. View MarketBeat's top stocks for September 2026.

Image source: The Motley Fool. Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026 at 4:30 p.m. ET Senior Vice President of Investor Relations - Kiley Rawlins Chief Executive Officer - Kecia Steelman Chief Financial Officer - Chris DelOrefice Operator: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Ryan, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I'd like to welcome you all to Ulta Beauty's Second Quarter and Fiscal 2026 Earnings Call. This conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I'd like to turn the call over to Ms. Kiley Rawlins, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations. Ms. Rawlins, please proceed. Kiley Rawlins: Thank you, Ryan. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for a discussion of Ulta Beauty's results for the second quarter of fiscal 2026. Hosting our call today are Kecia Steelman, Chief Executive Officer; and Chris DelOrefice, Chief Financial Officer. During today's webcast, a presentation is being displayed live and has been posted to our website, ulta.com/investor. As a reminder, today's earnings release and the comments made by management during this call include forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from our expectations and projections. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, factors identified in this earnings release and in our most recent 10-K. The company undertakes no obligation to revise any forward-looking statements. [Operator Instructions] And as always, the IR team will be available for any follow-up questions after the call. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Kecia. Kecia? Kecia Steelman: Thank you, Kylie, and good afternoon, everyone. The Ulta Beauty team delivered another quarter of impressive results, including 8.9% net sales growth, 10.1% operating profit growth and 13.3% diluted earnings per share growth. Our results reflect consistent operational execution and disciplined financial management. We stay close to our guests, manage the fundamentals with rigor and continued to invest in capabilities that will drive long-term growth. Our differentiated model continues to resonate with guests. This quarter, we saw strength across a number of key performance metrics. We delivered 3.8% comparable sales growth, expanded the number of active members in our loyalty program by 3%, drove an increase in average spend per member, launched 15 new brands, and increased earned media value and unaided awareness to record levels. At the same time, we strategically leveraged promotions to drive traffic and sales, fueled incremental sales through personalization and increased app engagement with the app now accounting for more than 60% of online sales. Importantly, our sales outpaced the U.S. beauty market in a dynamic environment. We increased our share of prestige beauty while holding mass share flat according to Circana. Quarter after quarter, we continue to translate strategy into results, delivering on our commitments, strengthening our business and reinforcing the durability of our model and what our teams can achieve together. As a result of our first half performance, we've raised our sales and earnings guidance for the year, which Chris will cover more in detail shortly. Let me now share more details on our second quarter performance and the progress we're making across our Ulta Beauty Unleashed pillars. Beginning with our core business growth pillar. Our U.S. business continues to power the company's overall performance supported by our focus on delighting guests at every interaction, advancing our go-to-market approach, delivering compelling merchandising innovation and strengthening our marketing leadership. Starting with the heart of our omni-channel ecosystem, our stores. We fueled growth with the addition of 13 net new Ulta Beauty stores during the quarter and drove modest comp growth in stores as we lapped our strongest quarter from last year. Performance was driven by effective execution of key promotions and events along with the impact of compelling newness. Our store associates maximized key selling opportunities and drove guest excitement in sales during key events like the Big Summer Beauty Sale, Mother's Day and Father's Day. During the quarter, we held more than 40,000 in-store events to support significant brand launches and brand activations. These high energy events featured brand education and drove in-store traffic, strong guest engagement and sales. E-commerce momentum continued in Q2 as we delivered our sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit sales growth driven by ongoing investments in our guest experience, omni-channel capabilities and emerging channels. Sales were fueled by planned merchandise and marketing promotions that resonated with guests along with the enhanced convenience of our buy anywhere, fill anywhere capabilities. During Q2, we fulfilled more than 50% of our e-commerce orders through our vast network of more than 1,500 convenience store locations. Ulta Beauty's TikTok Shop continued to gain traction during the quarter, supported by the official brand opening campaign and the addition of several new brands to the shop including TikTok's first live celebrity fragrance launch by rapper Ice Spice. We also used our new Chelsea, New York store as a TikTok Shop live shopping studio, driving in-store guest excitement and online impressions. Since the launch, our TikTok initiative has driven over 100 million impressions. Notably, we're attracting significant attention from brand partners who are interested in joining our TikTok Shop assortment and from creators who are interested in collaborating with the Ulta Beauty brand. We're pleased with the ongoing success of TikTok initiative and the competitive differentiation it is enabling for Ulta Beauty. From a merchandising perspective, we're focused on creating a continuous sense of discovery, bringing guest products, brands, trends and experiences to give them reasons to keep coming back to Ulta Beauty. Our merchants are curating innovation across established brands, emerging brands exclusive offerings and fresh beauty trends, effectively translating what is culturally relevant into a guest experience that feels accessible and exciting. This starts with our focus on brand building. First, let me highlight some of the exciting go-to-market and brand building efforts underway to advance our ambition to win in fragrance. Fragrance continues to be an important growth driver for Ulta Beauty, supported by a strong pipeline of newness and culturally relevant brand launches that are bringing excitement and discovery to the category. During the second quarter, we launched several new and exclusive fragrances, including Cloudar by Drake's Better World Fragrance, XO BLUE by Khloé Kardashian, Hot Girl Summer by Megan Thee Stallion and Viktor&Rolf's Bonbon collection among several others. Bringing compelling newness to our assortment, our marketing team reinforced Ulta Beauty as a destination for fragrance through a number of high-impact campaigns, while our store and e-commerce teams brought these launches to life through prominent, engaging experiences both in-store and online. Together, these efforts help drive meaningful market share expansion in fragrance. Beyond fragrance, K-Beauty momentum continued. We expanded our leading assortment with the addition of 5 new K-Beauty brands, including Dr. Melaxin, numbuzin, [ Dr.Reju-All ], ClearDea and Centellian24. A robust double-digit growth in K-Beauty sales compared to the same period last year gives us confidence in our K-Beauty assortment. Importantly, nearly half of our K-Beauty sales during the quarter came from exclusive brands or products. Our efforts contributed to continued share gains and reinforced our optimism in the longevity of the K-Beauty brands over time. From a broader newness perspective, newly launched brands like Rare Beauty, amika and Moroccanoil contributed nicely to performance. During the quarter, we launched 15 new brands, including Bath & Body Works, Frenshe, JUNOCO and others. And in addition to new brand launches, our merchants are collaborating in close partnership with existing brands to fuel the innovation pipeline and address key white space opportunities. During the quarter, we launched exclusive newness from our existing brand partners, including L'Oreal's Infallible Cushion Foundation, Charlotte Tilbury's Exagger-Eyes Waterproof Eyeshadow Sticks and Saltair's Shimmering Body Oil. We continue to advance our marketing strategy, strengthening Ulta Beauty's position at the intersection of beauty, culture and community. Our Rewrite the Rules summer campaign championed self-expression, amplified through our partnership with Supergirl in Milly Alcock across high-impact theater, store and social experiences that invited every beauty lover to rock your look and find your power. We showed up at the center of culture with activations at BottleRock and Lollapalooza, bringing beauty and music together with Ulta Beauty at the center. We amplified our reach through a powerful creator ecosystem, spanning influential voices across social platforms, the UB Collective, our own Ulta Beauty's brand partners and celebrity founders. We also expanded social commerce through TikTok Shop and TikTok Live, creating new pathways from inspiration and discovery to engagement and purchase. Together, these efforts drove strong growth in brand awareness and consideration with earned media value and impressions reaching record levels. Our robust loyalty program, which now encompasses about 47 million active members, remains central to inspiring members through personalized experiences, meaningful rewards and exclusive benefits that deepen engagement and build lasting relationships with Ulta Beauty. We are advancing our personalization capabilities, turning the strength of our first-party data and technology investments into even more relevant and impactful guest experiences. Our teams are increasingly focused on anticipating guest needs across key moments in their journey, using customer insights to identify behaviors and intent. From predicting replenishment needs to improving cart conversion, we're creating more opportunities to drive engagement and incremental sales while delivering greater relevance for every guest. Moving to our second pillar, scaling new businesses. Our international operations continue to scale. We recently celebrated the 1-year anniversary of our acquisition of Space NK, which operates stores in the U.K. and Ireland. Performance continues to be strong, and during the quarter, the Space NK team drove robust sales growth and continued market share expansion. In Mexico, we continue to expand our footprint with the opening of a new store in Chiapas, bringing total stores to 12 at the end of the quarter. The team leaned into the excitement of the World Cup as a sponsor of Campo Marte's international soccer fan festival, where they held an experiential beauty activation, driving awareness and guest excitement. In addition, our franchise partner in the Middle East, Alshaya, is making progress on several new store openings planned for later this year. We are navigating the ongoing geopolitical environment in partnership with Alshaya and remain optimistic about the expansion opportunities in the region over the long term. We are expanding our assortment and giving guests even more choice through Ulta Beauty's marketplace initiative. During the quarter, we continued to add new brands and SKUs across each of the 7 marketplace assortment focus areas, closing the quarter with more than 450 brands and over 12,000 SKUs in our marketplace assortment. Our marketplace is an excellent example of how each element of our model makes the next better. Marketplace is attracting new and reactivating lapsed loyalty members, serving as a source of newness that elevates our assortment with high potential brands and fueling incremental UB Media growth as more marketplace brands leverage our media network to drive awareness and sales. Moving to overall UB Media performance. We're seeing solid momentum as the team drove double-digit growth compared to the second quarter in 2025. The strength of new products, including connected TV, along with new brand investment from both core and marketplace brands, fueled growth and profitability. We continue to test and expand new product offerings to round out our suite of tools to support brand partner advertising effectiveness and sales growth. In wellness, our assortment continues to resonate with guest, and we're fueling incremental growth through this important element of our business. We held our inaugural Find Your Feel Good wellness event, which sparked meaningful guest engagement and awareness. We built on our first quarter success, incorporating wellness into our strategic tentpole events like Big Summer Beauty Sale and continued to elevate our assortment with the addition of 4 new brands, including exclusive Only at Ulta brand good day by Patchology; and HigherDOSE, a wellness tools brand designed to ignite vitality from the inside out. I'm proud of how our teams are thoughtfully building our position in wellness, continuously applying what we learn to strengthen our approach and better serve the evolving needs of our guests. And finally, our third strategic pillar, aligning our foundation for the future. Within supply chain, we are effectively leveraging prior investments in technology, automation and network optimization to improve speed to guest, improve efficiency and help offset the impact of rising fuel cost. In addition, our AI-powered sourcing capabilities continue to optimize the omni-channel inventory across all nodes, allowing us to meet greater guest and customer demand more efficiently and reduce markdowns. Beyond just supply chain, we are advancing our AI capabilities across the business to elevate the guest experience and unlock meaningful operational efficiencies. As consumers increasingly turn to AI for search and discovery, we have scaled content creation and enriched product information across AI platforms like OpenAI's ChatGPT, positioning Ulta Beauty as an authority of source for beauty discovery, inspiration and expertise. We also leveraged our partnership with Google Gemini to launch first-to-market capabilities, including multi-SKU purchases. At the same time, we enhanced our on-site shopping agent, Ulta AI, with new features and broader placement as a high-performing discovery experience. These efforts are delivering encouraging results, driving meaningful increases in site traffic and improved conversion. At the same time, we're in the early stages of applying AI across key corporate uses to enhance how we work, improve productivity and drive greater efficiency. As these capabilities mature, we see opportunities to scale AI thoughtfully across the organization and deliver incremental value over time. Turning to the operating landscape. We see continued beauty and wellness resilience and strong consumer interest and engagement. At the same time, perceived value continues to influence purchase decisions, and consumers are being choiceful as they navigate macro uncertainty and higher everyday expenses, including elevated fuel cost. Against this backdrop, we are uniquely positioned to meet our guests wherever they are. We are focused on emphasizing the multiple ways we deliver meaningful value while continuing to deepen engagement with our brand, including an assortment that spans all price points, giving guests choice and flexibility to shop on any budget; a seamless omni-channel experience for convenient shopping and fulfillment options; and a powerful value-rich loyalty program that rewards members with personalized promotions, relevant offers and exclusive perks. Looking ahead, we will remain disciplined and responsive as we manage the evolving operating landscape with a focus on serving our guest, driving sales growth and positioning Ulta Beauty to consistently capture market share. As we move into the second half of the year, we're excited about our ability to execute on our key strategic priorities within our Ulta Beauty Unleashed strategy to further fuel core business growth and scale new growth vectors while aligning our foundation for sustained profitable growth. In closing, our year-to-date performance, including strong sales and earnings growth as well as continued share gains, is a compelling demonstration that Ulta Beauty's differentiated model is more relevant than ever and that our Ulta Beauty Unleashed strategy is working. What sets our differentiated model apart is the power of our entire ecosystem, leading assortment, services, loyalty, omni-channel convenience, beauty expertise and shopping experience all working together. This combination creates a flywheel that attracts more guests, more loyalty, more data and some insights and more brand partnerships, which in turn makes Ulta Beauty the ultimate beauty discovery destination and represents a strategic advantage that is very difficult to replicate. By leveraging our unique understanding of our guest and the beauty landscape, we are strengthening trust and deepening loyalty to ensure Ulta Beauty is the beauty destination, our growing number of guests choose again and again. I want to thank all of our associates for delivering these strong results and advancing our long-term strategic priorities amidst a dynamic operating environment. We are energized by our continued progress and confident in the enduring relevance of beauty, the powerful connection our guests and associates have with Ulta Beauty and the significant growth opportunities ahead. I'm confident that we have the right team, strategy and model to continue to win in beauty and drive profitable growth and meaningful long-term value for all of our stakeholders. And with that, I'll turn it over to Chris to cover the financials. Christopher DelOrefice: Thanks, Kecia, and good afternoon, everyone. I'll begin with the discussion of our second quarter results and then share our updated expectations for the year. The Ulta Beauty team delivered strong profitable growth again this quarter. Our performance reflects the power of our Ulta Beauty Unleashed strategy, which drove healthy revenue, operating profit and earnings growth. This performance was enabled by effective management of gross margin in a competitive environment and a balanced approach to SG&A, including investing to support growth, complemented by a focus on expense discipline and delivering productivity. I want to express my sincere appreciation to all our teams for their continued focus and thoughtful execution in driving these strong results. Highlighting our performance in the quarter, beginning with sales. Net sales for the quarter increased 8.9% to $3 billion compared to $2.8 billion last year. Importantly, excluding the impact of Space NK, total sales increased in the strong mid-single-digit range. During the quarter, we opened 13 net new Ulta Beauty stores and 1 new Space NK store. Other revenue grew approximately 2% to $54 million. Comparable sales for the period increased 3.8%, driven by average ticket primarily reflecting the impact of category mix shifts with transactions roughly flat to last year. From a channel perspective, both store and digital channels contributed to comp growth with e-commerce delivering high teens sales growth and comp stores delivering modest growth. Turning now to sales by category. Fragrance continued to be our strongest category this quarter, delivering high-teen comp growth, driven by successful Mother's Day and Father's Day activations and compelling newness. Incremental marketing support for key fragrance moments and a thoughtfully curated assortment of both breakthrough exclusive newness and beloved luxury fragrance icons continue to drive momentum. Guests responded to the excitement of discovering what's new while continuing to turn to Ulta Beauty for key gifting occasions. This performance was supported by strength in our core luxury brands, Prada, Carolina Herrera and YSL as well as the exclusive new brand launch of Megan Thee Stallion. Exclusive brand NOYZ, through its innovative Mylk scent format and standout newness in collaboration with award-winning singer-songwriter Ella Langley, drove virality and strong guest engagement. The hair care category delivered high single-digit comp growth again this quarter driven primarily by strong performance in prestige hair care and hair tools. Newer brands, amika and Moroccanoil as well as exclusive brand CÉCRED, continue to drive healthy growth in prestige hair care as hair treatments such as scalp regimens continue to resonate with consumers. Innovative offerings from Shark and T3 contributed to growth within hair tools. Comp sales in the makeup category were approximately flat with growth in prestige makeup, offset by a decrease in mass makeup. Compelling newness, including an early lead from Charlotte Tilbury and an exclusive launch with Half Magic as well as ongoing performance of new brand Rare Beauty drove guest excitement and low single-digit growth for prestige makeup. Mass makeup declined in the low single-digit range with exclusive newness from L'Oreal, strength from Milani and sustained growth for Morphe, which was more than offset by select mass brands, which lapped meaningful newness from last year. Comp sales in the total skin care and wellness category declined modestly this quarter. Wellness delivered another quarter of double-digit growth with nutrition and supplements, including Lemme, MaryRuth's and Cymbiotika as well as self-care brands, including Therabody and Saje driving category performance. Prestige and mass skin care continue to contribute to growth as K-Beauty brands, including medicube, ANUA, and exclusive brand PEACH & LILY and newness from existing brands, including Tatcha and La Roche-Posay drove category performance and strong guest engagement. This growth was more than offset by lower sales in body care as we lapped meaningful expansions of key brands last year. Finally, services delivered mid-single-digit comp growth driven by strong member engagement in salon and specialty services, including ear piercing and makeup services. Gross margin decreased modestly to 39.1% of sales compared to 39.2% of sales last year, primarily due to the impact of the Space NK business mix. Regarding the Ulta Beauty business, we continue to effectively manage gross margin, delivering modest improvement in the quarter through shrink reductions, increased supply chain productivity and preservation of merchandise margin while absorbing the impact of channel mix and slower other revenue growth. Moving to SG&A. We continue to execute against our expense optimization plan, maintaining financial discipline and driving efficiencies while prioritizing targeted investments. For the quarter, SG&A increased 8.2% to $803 million, primarily due to the acquisition of Space NK. As a percent of sales, SG&A decreased 20 basis points to 26.4% compared to 26.6% last year, largely due to lower incentive compensation and leverage of corporate overhead partially offset by the impact of Space NK and increased investments in advertising to support growth and market share gains. Operating profit grew double digits at 10.1% to $380 million. As a percent of sales, operating margin was 12.5% of sales compared to 12.4% last year, reflecting strong execution across the P&L. Interest expense was $4 million, primarily reflecting the continued utilization of our revolver to support our previously communicated increase in share buybacks. Wrapping up the second quarter P&L, net income increased 8.1% to $282 million and diluted earnings per share increased double digits at 13.3% to $6.55 per share. Turning to the balance sheet and our capital deployment strategies. We continue to maintain a disciplined approach to cash and capital expenditures, driving improved near-term cash efficiency while investing against our long-term growth priorities. We ended the quarter with $213 million in cash and short-term investments and $340 million in short-term debt. Total inventory was flat at $2.4 billion, reflecting improved inventory management, offset by inventory to support new brand launches and the addition of new stores. On a per store basis, inventory decreased 4.1%. Capital expenditures were $81 million for the quarter, primarily driven by investments in new and existing stores and technology. In the quarter, we continued to return excess capital to shareholders, deploying cash and leveraging our revolver to support $236 million of stock repurchases, bringing the year-to-date total to $791 million. At the end of the second quarter, $1 billion remained available under our current share repurchase program, and we now expect to complete the current Board authorization in fiscal 2026, increasing our stock buyback target to $1.8 billion for the year. We expect stock repurchases to remain a core part of our capital allocation strategy in the future as we work with our Board to define the next iteration of our buyback program. Turning now to our updated outlook for fiscal 2026. We intend to expand market share and drive compelling profitable growth this year, and our teams delivered against these goals with strong execution across the P&L through the first half of fiscal 2026. Reflecting the strong performance, we have raised our full year expectations for both sales and earnings. We now expect fiscal 2026 net sales growth to be between 6.7% and 7.2% with comp sales growth between 3.2% and 3.7%. We expect operating profit growth to be between 8.3% and 9.3% for the year. We continue to expect to generate strong operating cash flow, which will enable reinvestment to support future growth and also support our increased plan to return $1.8 billion in capital to shareholders through our stock repurchase program in fiscal 2026. We also now expect diluted EPS to be between $28.70 and $29 per share, representing growth between 11.9% and 13.1%, respectively, compared to previously announced growth expectations of 10.6% to 12.3%. Note, our estimates assume a weighted average share count of approximately 43 million shares and a tax rate of approximately 24.5%. For modeling purposes, we now expect modest improvement in operating margin for the year with opportunity to increase margin up to 20 basis points. We intend to continue to balance investments across cost of sales and SG&A to support market share expansion and strong profitable growth. We continue to expect gross margin for the year will be roughly flat as we leverage growth and productivity to balance channel mix, fuel costs and the need to compete in an evolving environment. We continue to expect SG&A expenses will increase less than revenue growth for the year as we lap Ulta Beauty Unleashed investments made last year, including the acquisition of Space NK and drive efficiencies while continuing to invest with discipline to support market share gains and maximize profitable growth. Reflecting our intent to continue to leverage our revolver to support our stock buyback program, we expect interest expense will be between $14 million and $16 million for the year. In addition to reflecting a strong first half performance, our updated guidance reflects appropriate prudence for the second half given the evolving macro landscape. For the second half, we now expect net sales to increase 4% to 5%, inclusive of comp sales growth of between 2% and 3% as we lapped stronger performance during the same period last year. Based on this expectation, we anticipate our 2-year stacked comp for the second half will be greater than 8%. Consistent with our prior guidance, we expect operating profit will increase between 6% and 8% for the second half. We continue to plan SG&A growth in the low single-digit range, which will more than offset planned pressure from gross margin. Recall the gross margin in Q3 last year benefited from the timing of market-wide price actions from select brands, which are not expected to repeat this year. Reflecting these expectations, we expect to deliver diluted EPS growth between 9% and 12% for the second half of the year versus the same period last year. One final comment as you review your models. We expect normal seasonality between Q3 and Q4 as we invest in Q3 to prepare for the holiday season and therefore, would expect less EPS growth in Q3 versus Q4. In closing, Ulta Beauty continues to be well positioned to deliver compelling long-term value creation for shareholders. We remain focused on executing with discipline against our plans including focused investments to increase market share and deliver strong profitable sales growth and double-digit annual earnings growth for shareholders. And now I'll turn the call over to our operator to moderate the Q&A session. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from Rupesh Parikh with Oppenheimer. Rupesh Parikh: Congrats on a nice quarter. So I wanted to kick it off with the makeup category. So comps were flat during the quarter. I was just curious from an industry perspective, what you're seeing in the category and then how you're thinking about the back half and just curious if you expect any green shoots as we enter the back half of the fiscal year. Kecia Steelman: Thanks, Rupesh, for the question. Mass makeup performance was mostly a reflection of lack of newness from some of the major brands as they lapped some strength from last year. But we are seeing some encouraging activity in the category like when you're looking at what we're seeing going into the second half, this fuller face look, more expressive eye, et cetera. And then we're also very optimistic at some of the newness that we're seeing that's coming with the category in the back half. So I'd say between what we're seeing with trends with a little bit more of a heavier use makeup case going into the back half of the year, along with some newness that we're seeing in both mass and prestige, it gives us what we see. You mentioned about green shoots. We see that potentially there's some green shoots for us in the back half of this year in regards to makeup. Operator: Our next question will come from Lorraine Hutchinson with Bank of America. Lorraine Maikis: The competitive environment continues to intensify. Can you comment on how the promotional cadence has been for both Ulta Beauty and the competition? And then what's included in your outlook for the second half? Kecia Steelman: Thanks, Lorraine, for the question. As we shared in the remarks that value is an increasingly important consideration for the guest as they are facing some heightened economic uncertainty, and everybody is watching their pocketbook. The overall promotional environment did tick up a little bit in both the market, and we were a little bit more promotional year-over-year. But what I would say is that we were really strategic in our promotional plan, and we were very thoughtful in how we participated, the Big Summer Beauty Sale, Mother's Day and Father's Day. And then we did also target some promotions to protect market share, and a good example of that is Prime Days. We did participate in that, and we had planned in that in doing that in this quarter. There's 3 focus areas that we're really looking at with value because, to me, it's not just about the promotionality, but it's also about value and the value you're bringing to the guest. We're utilizing our investments that we've made to really power our personalization capabilities and maximize our promo efficiency. We're also leveraging our marketing to really highlight and reinforce that value message both in stores and online. And then we're continuing to balance promotionality with profitability as that environment continues to evolve. One of the things that we've been talking about here internally is that we want to evolve our promotional strategies to really drive profitable growth. And what that really means is that we're looking at a promo holistically. We're not just looking at that specific moment in time. We're also looking at like how does this promo potentially drive AOV, member engagement, a core assortment lift. So it's not just a stand-alone onetime period that we're looking at when we're investing in promotional activity. It's really more holistic, and it's a little bit more strategic in nature. So what I would say is, for the back half, we've got built into our forecast the ability to be flexible and really respond in a dynamic environment, and we're focused on continuing to take share and to drive profitable growth. Operator: Our next question will come from Christopher Horvers with JPMorgan. Christopher Horvers: So your sales came in better than the 2-year stack math for the second quarter. That would seem to imply some sort of acceleration from the time of the first quarter call. Is that fair? And what came in just overall better than expected, whether that was the newness or was it the engagement around some of these planned promotional events? And then as you look at that back half, that 2% to 3% same-store sales, is the message that there was something unique in the second quarter that doesn't persist? Or to what extent or is it just, hey, we don't know, the world is very uncertain, and you've got back to school and holiday ahead of us, so let's not get ahead of ourselves? Kecia Steelman: Thanks, Chris, for the question. I'll take the first part, and then I'll kick it over to Chris. What I will say is that when we gave guidance, we gave guidance based on the information that we had at the time when we had our last call. And we did see sales continue to pick up as the quarter went through. So what I would say is that I'm pleased -- I was just answering the question earlier with Lorraine around how our review of how we're attacking promotionality and how it's playing out and how the consumer is responding and really the levers that we're pulling on in more of a 360 approach. So it's not just about a promo. It's about how are we activating it in store with experience and being really thoughtful in how we're bringing the brands to life. We were pleased with how that continued to play out throughout the quarter. Maybe you can talk a little bit about the numbers in the stack Chris. Christopher DelOrefice: Yes. Thanks for the question. Look, first, overall, our sales guidance, we did increase it meaningfully for the full year, now at 6.7% to 7.2% and a total comp 3.2% to 3.7%. As you think of the second half of the year, we continue to make an assumption on growing share as we move into the second half of the year. The implied kind of second half growth in total is 4% to 5%, comp growth of 2% to 3%. I think it's probably easier to look at maybe a first half, second year, 2-year stack. We did say that the second half, we expect to be above 8%. When you look at the first half of the year versus the second half of the year, there's a meaningful step-up in the comp from 2025, right? We're a little over 6% in the back half of 2025 versus a little over 4.5% in the first half of 2025. So there's a meaningful step-up there. And so I would say there's not a significant difference between first half, second half. I do think, to your point, we want to remain prudent in a dynamic macro environment. We want to provide a forecast we have conviction in. And overall, we just see the guidance as very strong, and we see how that's also flowing through from strong profit and a really nice double-digit EPS portfolio. We think it sets up the balance of the year nicely, and we're pleased with the execution to date. Operator: Your next question will come from Anthony Chukumba with Loop Capital Markets. Anthony Chukumba: Congrats on another really strong quarter. Going back just a little bit to the competitive landscape. I mean, obviously, your former partner is now opening some beauty shop in shops. I know you've always said this is a very competitive category and a very attractive category. But as you think about the back half of this year and the upcoming holiday selling season, do you -- what is your appetite for, if necessary, getting more promotional to continue to gain market share? Kecia Steelman: Well, Anthony, what I would say is that beauty has always been a competitive category. We expect the battle for share to remain intense. Our job isn't to chase competitors. It's to really lean into what differentiates Ulta Beauty and execute it even better. We're the ultimate beauty discovery destination, and we really own that beauty journey end to end. And our competitive moat is really self-reinforcing. Unmatched choices attract guests. Our guests attract the best brands, and those brands bring greater newness and exclusivity. And that differentiation really deepens the loyalty and brings guests more into our ecosystem and makes Ulta Beauty even more valuable to those brands. So I was talking in my prepared comments about brand building and how important that is and how we're leaning into fragrance and K-Beauty. And exclusives are very, very important, and when you think about like even K-Beauty and our double-digit growth there, it was -- 50% of that was exclusive to us in our assortment. So we're just going to continue to lean into what it is that we do well. We will respond to any kind of dynamic environment that's out there. But we feel like we've got all of the levers that are playing to our advantage. And our guidance has built in the ability for us to remain promotional if needed. Christopher DelOrefice: Yes. I would just add that the team has done a really nice job of driving productivity both in gross margin and in SG&A. That's enabled us to make sure that we're investing for strong returns, again, both as you think of kind of go-to-market plans that may be in COGS, but also you saw an increase in marketing advertising, which has helped fuel growth as well. So really pleased with how we're managing the P&L, getting productivity, efficiency out of the areas we should and putting investment back in the business to fuel growth while preserving that flexibility to deliver on our increased guidance. Operator: Our next question will come from Krisztina Katai with Deutsche Bank. Krisztina Katai: Congrats on a nice set of results here. I had question on K-Beauty, right? Kecia, you said it delivered double-digit growth. I think nearly half of the sales are coming from exclusive brands or products. But as K-Beauty becomes more widely available, how are you thinking about maintaining Ulta's competitive advantage and authority within the space? And then if you could help quantify or maybe contextualize for us just the contribution that, that category has had on your comp growth. Kecia Steelman: Well, Krisztina, as the U.S. leader at K-Beauty for the last 18 months and we've been continuing to accelerate, we continue to lead into this assortment innovation of bringing the best of global beauty to the U.S. market and our international markets around the world. This also announced the launch of Proya, the #1 skin care brand in China. So it's not just about K-Beauty anymore. I think C-Beauty is also very, very important to us. And one of the things that we're going to really hold true here at Ulta Beauty is I think you can get really caught up into this K-Beauty hoopla about it being very fast fashion. Our merchants are very responsible and very thoughtful of curating the best brands that have great formulations and putting our guests first and making sure that they have strong efficiency and efficacy in our high-quality products that we're putting in front of our consumers. So we're not going to get caught up into this fast fashion of K-Beauty because there's a lot of noise out there. We want to put the very best of the assortment and have that trusted experience from our guests that are coming into the stores. So going forward, I'd say, I mentioned K-Beauty. It's C-Beauty, and there's other global trends that we're staying really close to. We feel good about the global innovation pipeline. We've got a lot of new products and categories that are coming across the broader assortment in merchandising. And we're really good at the storytelling and bringing those brands to life. It can be a little confusing on how do you shop this category specifically, and we're going to do a really nice job of continuing to simplify and be able to help that consumer shop a category that's still relatively new in the U.S. And then we're just going to continue to leverage our scale and our differentiated model and introduce brands. We're learning quickly from the guest response, and we're just going to continue to scale the strongest concepts across our ecosystem in a broad-based way. So it's not just about skin care. There's also makeup, and there's also hair care. So we're really leaning in it across the broader Ulta Beauty portfolio. Operator: Our next question will come from Sydney Wagner with Jefferies. Sydney Wagner: So as store fulfillment climbs past 50% of e-commerce orders and digital channel growth remains strong, can you just update us on the progress of closing the profitability gap between digital and store sales? And then are there any other levers beyond fulfillment that are meaningfully contributing there? Christopher DelOrefice: Yes. Thanks for the question. One, I mean, look, you see us this year as channel shifts continue to play out for us to nicely manage gross margin. We have a really strong supply chain productivity agenda. We actually got some leverage this quarter on strong growth from our store fixed costs, and this is inclusive of absorbing headwinds like increased fuel costs as well. So the team across the board has done an outstanding job. To your point, kind of the leverage of our store footprint becomes an effective mechanism to manage the delta between the transportation costs, and we're going to continue to drive that lever in addition to additional productivity. We feel confident using this year as sort of a proxy for our productivity agenda and just continuing to drive strong growth and get leverage across gross margin to continue to be able to balance this. We're treating things as omnichannel. Obviously, with strong growth, too, we're getting leverage from our broader fixed cost in our overall overhead structure within corporate. And then as you think of going forward, we'll continue to benefit from accretive growth from new value vectors like Marketplace and UB Media that will also be enhancing to gross margin. So we feel good about how we're managing things this year. And I think it sets up nicely for the future as well. Operator: Our next question will come from Susan Anderson with Canaccord Genuity. Susan Anderson: I guess maybe just looking at the newness, I don't know if you could talk about kind of what you see coming for the back half and I guess, just the strength of newness you see coming versus what we saw in the first half. And are there any certain categories that you think will be stronger than others such as fragrance or skin care? And then also, I guess, just when you look at mass versus prestige, I guess, how do you balance the investment between the 2 categories? It definitely seems like prestige has been stronger [ maybe ] now. So I guess just curious if you feel like the competition has increased at all in the mass area, particularly as like Walmart and stuff starts to kind of refocus back on their beauty. Kecia Steelman: Susan, you asked kind of a two-part question here. So the first part would be around how do I feel about the newness coming through in the back half. We feel great about the newness, and we feel like it's very balanced. It's one of the things that Lauren and the merchant team have done a fantastic job with, is really forecasting what newness we had in the pipeline last year, what do we have in the plan this year and how are we looking at making sure that we're bridging potentially any gaps that could be out there. We feel really good about the back half, and that's built into the guidance into the plan. In regards to mass, in mass, it's different than in prestige. In mass, we participate in a largely highly distributed market where the opportunity is continuing to gain relevance and share. But when you look at the mix of our business, about roughly 30% of it is coming from mass and 70% is coming from prestige. So we are a much smaller player in the beauty space in mass than where we are in prestige. So while we held share roughly flat in mass, especially with there not being a lot of newness in some of that mass category, I feel like that was a pretty good representation of the strength of our business in this last quarter. In regards to prestige, we've gained share in prestige in the quarter in both brick and mortar and e-commerce, which that's really where the majority of our business is coming from. But when you look at where our focus is, we really want to lean into being where you find discovery in mass. A great example of that is this cushion foundation where we were the launch lead and exclusive for L'Oreal, where we're bringing that brand to life in our stores, giving it credibility before it expands in other modes of distribution. And I think you'll see us playing in mass more in that way, and then we'll go on to the next new launch that could be playing. But I think when you look at the competitive environment for mass as a whole, I feel that we're going to continue to lean into exclusives, first to market that really differentiate us versus the other mass players because if it's just purely about price and total assortment, it's less than like 30% of our business right now today. So it's not really where we're totally leaning in. Operator: Our next question will come from Olivia Tong with Raymond James. Olivia Tong Cheang: Two questions, one on the overall environment, whether you're seeing any noticeable or observable trade down or affordability behavior. We obviously talked about the challenges in mass makeup, although it clearly sounds like it's more newness and competition, but you're seeing if -- you're seeing anything there. And then on the overall portfolio, you've now had Space NK for a year, international rollout marketplace. Would just love to hear a little bit more about your learnings from these endeavors. Kecia Steelman: Sure. Thanks, Olivia, for the question. What I will say is that we remain pleased with how our teams are executing in a dynamic environment. We have not seen any notable changes in consumer behavior in the quarter, and that means both the demographics from an age perspective and also from an income perspective, is that we're seeing increases in spend across the broader segmentation. So we've not seen trade down behavior happening. And again, us raising our guidance for the back half of the year does share that we're confident in what we've got out there that we will be able to continue to drive the business. In regards to what we've learned from the portfolio enhancements of Space NK, we've just now cycled on a year of having Space NK. It's gone really fast. We're really pleased with what we're seeing. There's been a lot of learnings for us in regards to clienteling, loyalty, second purchase. We're taking some of those learnings, and we're really applying them into our Ulta Beauty ecosystem. And on the flip side, I think some of the things that we've been able to bring to them is a little bit more around our -- the scale, the size that we have, our operational efficiencies and effectiveness. So again, when we made that acquisition, it was to me a 1 plus 1 equals 3, where I felt like we could be much stronger and better together than we would be as operating as independent companies. So I like what I'm seeing. I think we're learning a lot about their private label and their private branding there, the way that they're bringing their storytelling to life even more in stores. And I think that we're still in the early innings, but I'm really pleased with what I'm seeing also from their comp growth and how they're really performing and taking share still in the U.K., which is great. There has been no big surprises, and we've been really pleased with the overall performance. Operator: Our next question will come from Adrienne Yih with Barclays. Adrienne Yih-Tennant: Great. And I'll add my congratulations. Well done in a pretty darn tough environment. Kecia, I wanted to talk a little bit more about kind of the growth opportunities for the longer-term horizon. Health and wellness, that's obviously -- and then K-Beauty, those being sort of the new categories. They're very small today. How do you define wellness? I mean it's very, very broad. And how do you kind of curate an assortment that's trustworthy, as you said earlier, to grow that at an accelerated pace? And then secondarily, another area that seems like an opportunity is also your services business. It drives them into the stores. Is there anything that you are contemplating or strategically thinking about that might grow beyond the hair care, primarily hair care? Kecia Steelman: Yes. Thanks, Adrienne, for the question. I'll start with wellness first. What we've done is over the course of our introduction of wellness is that we've really focused on 4 strategic pillars. The first one is around nutrition and supplements. The second one is intimate care. Third is rest and relax, and the fourth is essential routine. So we're trying to not be everything to everyone. We're really focused on these 4 primary categories and bringing the best of these categories to life for our consumer. And we're learning very quickly from the insights that we've gained from the stores that we've expanded in right now and then also our expanded assortment in our Marketplace online. I do believe that this could be one of our next big pillar categories of continued growth. It doesn't cannibalize on the existing sales and also could help the trip frequency purchase very similar to how our services does in our stores, too. In regards to the services and any type of new services that we're looking at, we're continuing to always lean in, in how the guest is continuing to evolve the needs they have. We've added the ear piercing in stores in the last few years. That was due to the guest asking for it. While we backed away from skin -- and I think there's still something there that we've not maybe cracked the code within skin that we could maybe in the future, but in regards to like anything that's big and new in regards to services, we don't have anything to share at this point in time. I would just say that we do -- we're proud of how our salon business has been performing. We're very proud of how we've actually started to make it a little bit even more profitable within the walls that we're working in right now. So I would say more to come. We're always continuing to evolve and change and meeting the guests where they're at and staying very close to them and making sure that we're offering all the services that they're looking for. Kiley Rawlins: Ryan, I think we have one -- I think that we're out of time. So Kecia, do you want to take us home? Kecia Steelman: Yes, absolutely. I would just like to thank you for joining us today. And to wrap up, I want to thank our guests, our trusted brand partners and our dedicated associates for their continued engagement and support. We're proud of the consistency of our results and the progress we continue to make. Our increased guidance underscores our confidence in the path ahead and our ability to drive sustainable long-term growth and value creation for all of our stakeholders. We look forward to updating you on our progress on our next earnings call on December 3. But thank you, and have a great evening. Thanks, everyone. Operator: Thank you for joining. This concludes today's call. You may now disconnect. Before you buy stock in Ulta Beauty, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Ulta Beauty wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $440,710!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,335,252!* Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 978% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 213% for the S&P 500. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of August 31, 2026. This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Ulta Beauty. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Ulta Beauty (ULTA) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript was originally published by The Motley Fool

ULTA jumps 4% and ELF rises 5% Monday, reversing Friday's selloffs after both beat Q2 estimates and raised full-year guidance. Beauty gains outperform a falling SPY and XRT, while TGT drops 1% after ending its Ulta shop-in-shop and launching its own Beauty Studio. Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Ulta Beauty didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today. Beauty/cosmetics stocks are reversing Friday's post-earnings decline midday Monday, as two of the sector's most-watched names lead retail higher against a softer session for large-cap benchmarks. The rebound comes after both companies cleared quarterly estimates and raised full-year outlooks, only to see their shares sold heading into the weekend. Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ:ULTA) stock is up 4% to $538, while e.l.f. Beauty (NYSE:ELF) stock is climbing 5% to $108.92. Also framing the retail read, the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (NYSEARCA:XRT) is slipping 0.2% to $86.72. Meanwhile, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEARCA:SPY) is down 0.46% to $765.80, marking today's beauty bid as a targeted sector move rather than a broad risk-on rally. Ulta Beauty stock fell 4% to $517.18 Friday despite a Q2 2026 beat and a raised full-year guide, a decline covered in Friday's Ulta Beauty and e.l.f. Beauty pullback recap. Reporting Monday attributes part of the advance to an analyst upgrade, though the upgrading firm hasn't been confirmed and isn't being named here. Buyers are effectively taking the other side of Friday's fade, and the tone shift is testing whether that initial reaction was an overshoot on otherwise clean prints. Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Ulta Beauty didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today. In its Q2 2026 report, Ulta Beauty posted net income of $282 million, or $6.55 per share, against $260.9 million and $5.78 a year earlier, clearing the $6.20 consensus. Revenue grew 8.9% to $3.04 billion versus $2.99 billion consensus, and comparable sales rose 3.8% against the 2.3% analysts expected. The mix of top-line growth and above-plan comps is what bulls want to see from a specialty retailer navigating an uneven consumer. Ulta Beauty raised full-year EPS guidance to $28.70 to $29 from $28.36 to $28.80, its annual sales growth target to 6.7% to 7.2% from 6% to 7%, and its comp sales guidance to 3.2% to 3.7% from 2.5% to 3.5%. CEO Kecia Steelman stated the team is "executing with discipline and translating our Ulta Beauty Unleashed strategy into tangible benefits for our guests." Ulta Beauty and e.l.f. Beauty are rebounding from opposite starting points, and that divergence is the trade worth understanding. e.l.f. Beauty stock was up 37% year to date (YTD) through Friday's close, while Ulta Beauty stock was down 14% YTD through the same session. Similar-sized session pops carry very different meaning for each name, with e.l.f. Beauty extending a leadership run and Ulta Beauty trying to reclaim ground lost through the first eight months of the year. Target (NYSE:TGT) stock forms the third leg of today's beauty story. Target stock is down 1% to $161.52, even after finishing Friday up 71% YTD. The Ulta Beauty shop-in-shop partnership inside Target stores concluded in August after the two companies chose not to renew it, and Target is now launching its own Target Beauty Studio concept in more than 600 stores with dedicated beauty advisers. Target is sliding while both beauty pure-plays rally, which sharpens the read on where beauty share is being allocated in a post-partnership landscape. Investors can watch for whether Ulta Beauty stock reclaims its pre-earnings level of $544.99 and whether e.l.f. Beauty stock holds above $105 into the close. With XRT lower and SPY in the red, today's beauty bid reads like a focused sector rotation, and that raises the bar for follow-through into midweek trading if the broader retail sector doesn't join in. Position sizing matters here given the volatility around both names, and readers adding exposure should treat single-stock retail rebounds as tactical setups rather than trend confirmation. The unnamed upgrade adds momentum without a verifiable analyst thesis, so leaning too hard on today's move carries execution risk if a formal research note doesn't surface in the coming sessions. A modest starter position, sized to survive another gap lower, is the more defensible way to engage a same-day reversal like this one. The next scheduled catalyst for Ulta Beauty is its Q3 report, and e.l.f. Beauty holders can look to the company's next quarterly release for confirmation that its raised fiscal 2027 outlook is translating into sustained retailer sell-through. Between now and then, retail sector data and Target Beauty Studio's early rollout metrics will help set the tone for how beauty spending is being divided among the three names on the marquee today. Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Ulta Beauty didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today. Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Ulta Beauty, Inc. ULTA delivered another solid quarter as beauty newness, omnichannel demand and disciplined execution supported profitable growth. For the second quarter of fiscal 2026, earnings of $6.55 per share rose 13.3% year over year and beat the consensus estimate of $6.21. Net sales increased 8.9% to $3,035.7 million, topping the consensus estimate of $2,973 million. Comparable sales jumped 3.8%, driven by higher average ticket, while transactions were roughly flat. Ulta Beauty Inc. price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Ulta Beauty Inc. Quote Ulta Beauty continued to generate growth across stores and digital. E-commerce sales increased in the high-teens range, marking the sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit digital growth. Comparable-store sales posted modest growth as the company lapped a strong year-ago performance.The company opened 13 net new Ulta Beauty stores and one net new Space NK store during the quarter. Excluding Space NK, total sales increased in the strong mid-single-digit range. Stores fulfilled more than 50% of e-commerce orders, allowing ULTA to use its physical network to improve omnichannel convenience and fulfillment efficiency. Fragrance remained the strongest category, generating high-teen comparable sales growth on successful gifting events and compelling newness. Haircare delivered high-single-digit comparable growth, supported by prestige haircare, treatments and hair tools. K-Beauty sales also increased at a robust double-digit rate, with nearly half of sales coming from exclusive brands or products.Makeup comparable sales were approximately flat as prestige gains offset a low-single-digit decline in mass makeup. Skincare and wellness declined modestly, with growth in prestige and mass skincare and double-digit wellness gains more than offset by weaker body-care sales. Services generated mid-single-digit comparable growth on solid engagement in salon and specialty services. Gross profit increased 8.7% year over year to $1,186.95 million. Gross margin declined 10 basis points (bps) to 39.1%, primarily reflecting the Space NK business mix. Within the core Ulta Beauty business, lower shrink, supply-chain productivity and merchandise-margin preservation supported modest gross-margin improvement.SG&A expenses increased 8.2% to $802.78 million, but declined 20 bps as a percentage of sales to 26.4%. Lower incentive compensation and corporate-overhead leverage partly offset Space NK costs and higher advertising investments. Operating income rose 10.1% to $379.64 million, while operating margin improved 10 bps to 12.5%. Net income increased 8.1% to $282.01 million. Ulta Beauty ended the quarter with about 47 million active loyalty members, up 3% year over year, while average spending per member increased. The mobile app represented more than 60% of online sales, and management continued using personalization capabilities to drive incremental sales and engagement.Marketplace expanded to more than 450 brands and over 12,000 SKUs, while UB Media delivered double-digit growth. Space NK generated robust sales growth and continued to gain market share. In Mexico, Ulta Beauty ended the quarter with 12 stores as the company continued expanding its international presence. Merchandise inventory was nearly flat year over year at $2,406.73 million, while inventory per store declined 4.1%. Cash and short-term investments totaled $213.45 million, while short-term debt was $339.58 million. First-half operating cash flow reached $381.59 million, and capital expenditures totaled $139.53 million.ULTA repurchased $791.10 million of stock during the first six months of fiscal 2026. The company raised its fiscal 2026 repurchase target to $1,800 million and expects to use the remaining $1,000 million under its current share repurchase authorization by fiscal year-end. Management raised fiscal 2026 net sales growth guidance to 6.7-7.2% from 6-7% and comparable sales growth expectations to 3.2-3.7% from 2.5-3.5%. Operating income growth is now projected at 8.3-9.3%, up from 6.5-9%.  Earnings guidance increased to $28.70-$29.00 per share from $28.36-$28.80.For the second half, Ulta Beauty expects net sales growth of 4-5%, comparable sales growth of 2-3%, operating profit growth of 6-8% and earnings growth of 9-12%. Full-year gross margin is expected to remain roughly flat, while operating margin could improve by up to 20 bps. Capital expenditures remain projected at $400-$450 million.Shares of the Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company have gained 6.1% in the past three months against the industry’s 3.8% decline. Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc. SBH, a retailer and distributor of professional beauty supplies, currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). SBH delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 6.4%, on average. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Sally Beauty’s current financial-year sales and EPS is expected to rise 0.8% and around 9%, respectively, from the year-ago reported figures.Five Below, Inc. FIVE operates as a specialty value retailer in the United States and currently holds a Zacks Rank #2. FIVE delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 70.1%, on average.The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Five Below’s current fiscal-year sales and earnings indicates growth of 15.1% and 36.7%, respectively, from the year-ago reported numbers. Target Corporation TGT offers guests fashionable, differentiated merchandise and everyday essentials at discounted prices. It currently has a Zacks Rank #2. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Target’s current financial-year sales and EPS indicates growth of 4.6% and 37.7%, respectively, from the year-ago reported numbers. TGT delivered a trailing four-quarter earnings surprise of 10.5%, on average. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Ulta Beauty Inc. (ULTA) : Free Stock Analysis Report Target Corporation (TGT) : Free Stock Analysis Report Sally Beauty Holdings, Inc. (SBH) : Free Stock Analysis Report Five Below, Inc. (FIVE) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research

Ulta Beauty beat EPS by $0.35, raised full-year guidance, yet sank 6%, dragging e.l.f. Beauty down 2% on sympathy selling. XRT rose 0.7% and SPY held flat Friday, isolating Ulta Beauty's drop as single-name profit-taking, not a sector or macro event. A $500 support zone, 20x P/E, and $1.8 billion buyback program offer potential downside buffers for patient investors. Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Ulta Beauty didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today. Beauty retail is delivering a curious reaction this morning as the sector's dominant name posts strong quarterly numbers yet loses ground in heavy trading. The reaction reads as classic profit taking after a prior run, since nothing in the release accounts for a decline of this size. Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ:ULTA) stock is down 4% to $517.18 in Friday morning trading. The company delivered a top and bottom line beat plus a full year guidance raise, adding to a strong recent run heading into the report. Also feeling the tug, e.l.f. Beauty (NYSE:ELF) stock is down 2% to $103.96 as sympathy selling spreads across specialty beauty. Even after this pullback, e.l.f. Beauty stock was up 40% year to date (YTD) through Thursday's close, so peer weakness is trimming a strong recent run rather than reversing it. Reporting after Thursday's close, Ulta Beauty posted net income of $282 million, or $6.55 per share, against $260.9 million and $5.78 per share a year earlier, clearing the $6.20 analyst estimate. Revenue grew 8.9% to $3.04 billion, above the $2.99 billion consensus. Comparable store sales advanced 3.8%, well ahead of the 2.3% analysts expected, with fragrance leading category strength and e-commerce delivering high teen sales growth. Management cited a sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit e-commerce sales growth and continued momentum in K-Beauty. Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Ulta Beauty didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today. Management then raised full year guidance in three places. Full year earnings per share guidance moved to $28.70 to $29 from $28.36 to $28.80, the annual sales growth target moved to 6.7% to 7.2% from 6% to 7%, and comparable store sales guidance moved to 3.2% to 3.7% from 2.5% to 3.5%. CEO Kecia Steelman stated the company is strengthening its competitive position through a focus on innovation, value and convenience. Ulta Beauty operates more than 1,500 domestic stores and 88 international locations, expanding abroad through its Space NK subsidiary in the U.K. and Ireland, a joint venture in Mexico and a franchise in the Middle East. The SPDR S&P Retail ETF (NYSEARCA:XRT) is up 0.7% to $87.24 this session, a clear divergence from Ulta Beauty stock. That gap matters because it rules out a broader retail selloff as the trigger for today's move. Meanwhile, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSEARCA:SPY) is up 0.49% at $774.92, indicating the wider market may be offering a mild macro headwind. Still, today's price action mainly reads as a single name repricing tied to positioning rather than a sector or index catalyst. e.l.f. Beauty stock is caught in a beauty-focused downdraft, though its 2% slide is far milder than Ulta Beauty stock's decline. That relative resilience aligns with e.l.f. Beauty's own recent momentum, since the shares had been running well ahead of the beauty complex heading into Friday. Selling into a beat isn't new for Ulta Beauty stock. The prior first quarter report also produced a beat and a 4.78% same day decline, and the Q2 2026 print showed a 14.61% surprise paired with a 7.14% same day drop. The pattern reflects elevated expectations after strong pre-report runs. Ulta Beauty stock was down 11% year over year (YoY) at Thursday's close, while SPY was up 13% YTD over the same stretch. That relative underperformance frames why any hint of a softer second half guide can prompt profit taking even when headline numbers clear the bar. Traders can watch for a stabilization near the $500 area, a psychological level that lines up with Ulta Beauty stock's 50-day moving average near $494.59 and could set the tone for how the reaction resolves into next week. Ulta Beauty carries a P/E ratio of 20x, which may cap further downside for value-oriented buyers. The bull case rests on the raised outlook, an expanded $1.80 billion buyback target, and durable fragrance and K-Beauty momentum. The bear case leans on a more measured second half comp guide of 2% to 3%, a promotional environment that ticked up, and a mass makeup category still running flat. Given the size of today's move against a clean report, ULTA investors should keep their positions modest and let the price action settle before adding exposure. A staged approach, sized to their risk tolerance, is preferable to chasing a name that just raised guidance under a single session of profit-taking pressure. Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Ulta Beauty didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today. Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Ulta Beauty (ULTA) came out with quarterly earnings of $6.55 per share, beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $6.21 per share. This compares to earnings of $5.78 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items. This quarterly report represents an earnings surprise of +5.48%. A quarter ago, it was expected that this beauty products retailer would post earnings of $6.9 per share when it actually produced earnings of $7.74, delivering a surprise of +12.17%. Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates four times. Ulta, which belongs to the Zacks Retail - Miscellaneous industry, posted revenues of $3.04 billion for the quarter ended July 2026, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.10%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $2.79 billion. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates four times over the last four quarters. The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call. Ulta shares have lost about 10.2% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 12.1%. While Ulta has underperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock? There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately. Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions. Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for Ulta was mixed. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to perform in line with the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. It will be interesting to see how estimates for the coming quarters and the current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus EPS estimate is $5.78 on $3 billion in revenues for the coming quarter and $28.77 on $13.22 billion in revenues for the current fiscal year. Investors should be mindful of the fact that the outlook for the industry can have a material impact on the performance of the stock as well. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, Retail - Miscellaneous is currently in the top 38% of the 250 plus Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1. Another stock from the same industry, Five Below (FIVE), has yet to report results for the quarter ended July 2026. The results are expected to be released on September 2. This discount retailer is expected to post quarterly earnings of $1.32 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of +63%. The consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has remained unchanged over the last 30 days. Five Below's revenues are expected to be $1.21 billion, up 17.9% from the year-ago quarter. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Ulta Beauty Inc. (ULTA) : Free Stock Analysis Report Five Below, Inc. (FIVE) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research

Ulta Beauty (ULTA) reported $3.04 billion in revenue for the quarter ended July 2026, representing a year-over-year increase of 8.9%. EPS of $6.55 for the same period compares to $5.78 a year ago. The reported revenue compares to the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $2.97 billion, representing a surprise of +2.1%. The company delivered an EPS surprise of +5.48%, with the consensus EPS estimate being $6.21. While investors closely watch year-over-year changes in headline numbers -- revenue and earnings -- and how they compare to Wall Street expectations to determine their next course of action, some key metrics always provide a better insight into a company's underlying performance. Since these metrics play a crucial role in driving the top- and bottom-line numbers, comparing them with the year-ago numbers and what analysts estimated about them helps investors better project a stock's price performance. Here is how Ulta performed in the just reported quarter in terms of the metrics most widely monitored and projected by Wall Street analysts: Comparable sales - YoY change: 3.8% versus the eight-analyst average estimate of 2%. Total stores open at end of the quarter [U.S.]: 1,534 compared to the 1,537 average estimate based on six analysts. Number of stores opened during the quarter [U.S.]: 14 versus 16 estimated by five analysts on average. Net Sales by Primary Category - Services: 4% versus the two-analyst average estimate of 3.8%. Total stores open at beginning of the quarter [U.S.]: 1,521 compared to the 1,521 average estimate based on two analysts. Net Sales by Primary Category - Fragrance: 13% versus 12.5% estimated by two analysts on average. Net Sales by Primary Category - Haircare: 20% versus the two-analyst average estimate of 19.3%. Net Sales by Primary Category - Cosmetics: 37% versus 37.5% estimated by two analysts on average. Net Sales by Primary Category - Other: 2% versus 2% estimated by two analysts on average. View all Key Company Metrics for Ulta here>>> Shares of Ulta have returned +6.9% over the past month versus the Zacks S&P 500 composite's +3.7% change. The stock currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold), indicating that it could perform in line with the broader market in the near term. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Ulta Beauty Inc. (ULTA) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research

Interested in Ulta Beauty Inc.? Here are five stocks we like better. Ulta delivered strong second-quarter results, with net sales up 8.9% to $3 billion, operating profit up 10.1%, and diluted EPS rising 13.3% to $6.55. Comparable sales increased 3.8%, supported by higher average spending and a loyalty program that reached roughly 47 million active members. Growth was led by fragrance and haircare, while makeup was approximately flat and skincare and wellness declined modestly. E-commerce sales grew in the high teens for the sixth consecutive quarter, and Space NK continued to expand internationally. Ulta raised its fiscal 2026 outlook to 6.7%-7.2% net sales growth and diluted EPS of $28.70-$29.00, while increasing its annual stock-repurchase target to $1.8 billion. Management remains cautious about consumer value sensitivity and broader macroeconomic pressures in the second half. MarketBeat Week in Review – 08/03 - 08/07 Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ:ULTA) reported second-quarter fiscal 2026 results that included 8.9% net sales growth, 10.1% operating profit growth and a 13.3% increase in diluted earnings per share, prompting the beauty retailer to raise its full-year sales and earnings outlook. Chief Executive Officer Kecia Steelman said the company generated 3.8% comparable sales growth during the quarter, increased active loyalty-program members by 3% and saw higher average spending per member. Ulta’s loyalty program reached about 47 million active members. → Quantum Computing Is Raising the Stakes for Cybersecurity: 5 Stocks to Watch Ulta's Growth Is Real, But So Are the Risks “Our sales outpaced the U.S. beauty market in a dynamic environment,” Steelman said, adding that the company gained share in prestige beauty while maintaining flat share in mass beauty, according to Circana. Net sales rose to $3 billion from $2.8 billion a year earlier. Excluding the impact of Space NK, the U.K. and Ireland beauty retailer Ulta acquired, total sales increased in the mid-single-digit range, Chief Financial Officer Chris DelOrefice said. → NVIDIA Reveals $21 Billion SpaceX Stake: Signal of Confidence or Circular Financing? MarketBeat Week in Review – 06/01 - 06/05 Comparable sales growth was driven by average ticket, largely reflecting category-mix shifts, while transactions were roughly flat from the prior year. E-commerce posted high-teens sales growth, marking Ulta’s sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit digital growth, while comparable-store sales increased modestly. Ulta opened 13 net new U.S. stores and one new Space NK location during the quarter. More than half of e-commerce orders were fulfilled through its network of more than 1,500 store locations. Gross margin was 39.1% of sales, compared with 39.2% a year earlier, primarily due to the Space NK business mix. SG&A expense increased 8.2% to $803 million, though it declined to 26.4% of sales from 26.6% a year earlier. Operating profit rose to $380 million, with operating margin improving to 12.5% from 12.4%. Net income increased 8.1% to $282 million. Diluted earnings per share rose to $6.55. → Berkshire Boosts Its Bet: This AI Hyperscaler Is Now a Top-3 Holding DelOrefice said gross-margin management benefited from lower shrink, supply-chain productivity and preserved merchandise margin, partly offsetting channel-mix effects, higher fuel costs and slower growth in other revenue. Fragrance was Ulta’s strongest category, producing high-teens comparable sales growth. Management cited Mother’s Day and Father’s Day campaigns, new launches and continued strength in luxury brands including Prada, Carolina Herrera and YSL. The company also launched fragrances from Drake’s Better World Fragrance House, Khloé Kardashian, Megan Thee Stallion and Viktor&Rolf. Haircare generated high-single-digit comparable sales growth, supported by prestige haircare, treatments and hair tools. Newer brands Amika and Moroccanoil, as well as Cécred, contributed to prestige haircare performance, while Shark and T3 supported growth in hair tools. Makeup comparable sales were approximately flat. Prestige makeup grew at a low-double-digit rate, aided by launches from Charlotte Tilbury and Half Magic and continued momentum from Rare Beauty. However, mass makeup declined in the low-single-digit range as certain brands lapped major new-product introductions from the prior year. Steelman said the company sees potential “green shoots” in makeup for the second half, citing consumer interest in more expressive eye looks and a fuller-face makeup routine, as well as planned new launches in both mass and prestige products. Total skincare and wellness sales declined modestly, as growth in prestige and mass skincare and double-digit wellness growth was more than offset by lower body-care sales. Ulta said K-beauty sales increased at a robust double-digit rate, with nearly half of the category’s sales coming from exclusive brands or products. The company added five K-beauty brands during the quarter and said it also sees opportunity in broader global beauty trends, including Chinese beauty. Ulta said its TikTok Shop initiative generated more than 100 million impressions since launch. The retailer used its Chelsea, New York, store as a live-shopping studio and added brands to the social-commerce platform, including a live celebrity fragrance launch with rapper Ice Spice. The company’s marketplace assortment ended the quarter with more than 450 brands and over 12,000 SKUs. Management said the marketplace has helped attract new and reactivate lapsed loyalty members while supporting growth at Ulta’s UB Media advertising business. UB Media posted double-digit growth from the second quarter of 2025, supported by connected-TV offerings and spending by core and marketplace brands. Internationally, Space NK continued to report robust sales growth and market-share expansion, according to Steelman. Ulta also opened a store in Chiapas, Mexico, bringing its total store count there to 12. Its Middle East franchise partner, Alshaya Group, is progressing on additional stores planned for later this year, though Ulta said it is navigating geopolitical conditions in the region alongside the partner. Ulta raised its fiscal 2026 outlook and now expects net sales growth of 6.7% to 7.2%, with comparable sales growth of 3.2% to 3.7%. The company expects operating profit growth of 8.3% to 9.3% and diluted EPS of $28.70 to $29, representing annual growth of 11.9% to 13.1%. For the second half, Ulta expects net sales growth of 4% to 5% and comparable sales growth of 2% to 3%, while maintaining an expectation of market-share gains. Management said the outlook reflects both the company’s first-half results and caution about an evolving macroeconomic environment, including consumers’ focus on value and higher everyday costs. Ulta ended the quarter with $213 million in cash and short-term investments, $340 million in short-term debt and $2.4 billion in inventory. It repurchased $236 million of stock during the quarter, bringing year-to-date repurchases to $791 million. The company raised its fiscal-year buyback target to $1.8 billion and said it expects to complete its current board authorization during fiscal 2026. Ulta Beauty, Inc (NASDAQ: ULTA) is a U.S.-based specialty retailer and beauty services provider focused on cosmetics, fragrance, skin care, hair care, bath and body, and beauty tools. The company operates a dual-format business that combines brick-and-mortar retail stores with an e-commerce platform, offering a broad assortment of national, prestige and mass-market brands alongside its own private-label products. In many locations Ulta also provides full-service salon treatments, positioning the company as a one-stop destination for product discovery and in-store services. The retailer's product mix spans color cosmetics, haircare and styling products, skin and body care, fragrance, and accessories, catering to a wide range of consumer preferences and price points. This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected]. The article "Ulta Beauty Q2 Earnings Call Highlights" was originally published by MarketBeat. View MarketBeat's top stocks for August 2026.