The Home Depot, Inc. (NYSE:HD) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Page 6 of 10

Billy Bastek: Yes. Thanks Steven. No, I think we articulated earlier about the weather patterns. We actually talked in Q1 about the impact that the West had. The West was our best-performing region, best-performing division for Q2. So, we saw a lot of that engagement back into those spring categories. We pushed a little bit around from June to July with some of the weather and the heat, as you saw more in ACs and fans. So, a much more normalized balance to the quarter outside of just some shifting of some of those smaller seasonal pieces.

Steven Zaccone: Okay. Great. And then just a clarification on second half expectations, is there any difference in how you are thinking about the business in the third quarter versus the fourth quarter comps? And then maybe a more near-term question, if July benefited a bit from weather, how has August to-date trended? Is it fair to say you are kind of back within that full year guidance range?

Richard McPhail: Right. So, the first two weeks of the third quarter have been a little better than our first half comp. But we have 24 weeks left in the year. So, we think the guidance range is appropriate.

Steven Zaccone: Okay. And then just third quarter versus fourth quarter, should we just kind of look at the 1-year comparisons?

Richard McPhail: We are not going to provide quarterly guidance. And again, we have got 24 weeks left in the year. So, we think the range is appropriate.

Steven Zaccone: Okay. Thanks. Best of luck in the back half.

Richard McPhail: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Chuck Grom with Gordon Haskett. Please proceed with your questions.

Chuck Grom: Thanks very much. Great quarter. You committed to investing $1 billion in wages this year. But as comps and transactions have remained negative and the flexibility that you have with the transaction-based labor model, is there the potential for that full amount not to be realized or will you reinvest it in other parts of the business?

Richard McPhail: Well, from a financial perspective, of course, there is an assumption around how many hours would be utilized during the year. There is something that has to be multiplied against the wage. But I wouldn’t say this is a material. You are not going to see a material change in our financial profile. And again, our guidance is the best guideline for you to look out with respect to our annual – likely annual performance.

Chuck Grom: Okay. Great. Thank you. And then for Ann, just can you elaborate a little bit more on the computer vision technology? How quickly is that going to be rolled out across the chain? And maybe elaborate on some of the benefits you think you could see in the near-term.

Ann-Marie Campbell: Sure. So, first of all, we started with Sidekick application, which direct associates to pass down product from the overhead. And so Sidekick is a task to computer vision to help that associate see where the product in the overhead, so which is a complementary component to drive overall productivity. So, we are certainly bullish. We have that in our – a region that’s fully rolled out already. We have that in what we consider pilot stores across every single region. And we expect that to be rolled out later this year. We are seeing some really, really good output finding product that takes a ton of time in our stores. So, I have been around for a long time, my neck looking up in the overhead trying to find product for customers, and we have thousands of associates that’s doing that every day.

Page 6 of 10