The Home Depot, the world's largest home improvement retailer, today reported sales of $33.5 billion for the third quarter of fiscal 2020, an increase of $6.3 billion, or 23.2 percent from the third quarter of fiscal 2019. Comparable sales for the third quarter of fiscal 2020 were positive 24.1 percent, and comparable sales in the U.S.were positive 24.6 percent.

Net earnings for the third quarter of fiscal 2020 were $3.4 billion, or $3.18 per diluted share, compared with net earnings of $2.8 billion, or $2.53 per diluted share, in the same period of fiscal 2019. For the third quarter of fiscal 2020, diluted earnings per share increased 25.7 percent from the same period in the prior year.

"The third quarter was another exceptional quarter for The Home Depot as we saw the continuation of outsized demand for home improvement projects, which has led to sales growth of more than $15 billion through the first nine months of the year," said Craig Menear, chairman and CEO. "Our ability to effectively adapt to this high-demand environment is a testament to both the investments we have made in the business as well as our associates' focus on customers. We continue to lean into these investments because we believe they are critical in enabling market share growth in any economic environment. I am proud of the resilience and strength our associates have continued to demonstrate, and I would like to thank them and our supplier partners," said Menear.

Investment in Associates

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, The Home Depot has taken significant actions to support associates, including expanded paid time off for all hourly associates to use at their discretion and the implementation of a temporary weekly bonus program. The Company is now transitioning from these temporary programs to invest in permanent compensation enhancements for frontline, hourly associates. This will result in approximately $1 billion of incremental compensation on an annualized basis.  

The Home Depot will conduct a conference call today at 9 a.m. ET to discuss information included in this news release and related matters. The conference call will be available in its entirety through a webcast and replay at ir.homedepot.com/events-and-presentations.

At the end of the third quarter, the Company operated a total of 2,295 retail stores in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, 10 Canadian provinces and Mexico. The Company employs more than 400,000 associates. The Home Depot's stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: HD) and is included in the Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor's 500 index.