Ralph Lauren Corporation (RL) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Ralph Lauren Corporation (NYSE:RL) Q3 2023 Earnings Conference Call February 9, 2023 9:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Corinna Van der Ghinst - Investor Relations

Patrice Louvet - President, CEO & Director

Jane Nielsen - CFO & COO

Conference Call Participants

Dana Telsey - Telsey Advisory Group

Matthew Boss - JPMorgan

Michael Binetti - Credit Suisse

Paul Kearney - Barclays

Laurent Vasilescu - BNP Paribas Exane

Ike Boruchow - Wells Fargo

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Ralph Lauren Third Quarter Fiscal Year 2023 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded.

I'd now like to turn over the conference to our host, Ms. Corinna Van der Ghinst. Please go ahead.

Corinna Van der Ghinst

Good morning, and thank you for joining Ralph Lauren's Third Quarter Fiscal 2023 Conference Call. With me today are Patrice Louvet, the company's President and Chief Executive Officer; and Jane Nielsen, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer. After prepared remarks, we will open up the call for your questions, which we ask that you limit to one per caller.

During today's call, we will be making some forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including our financial outlook. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees and our actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in the forward-looking statements. Our expectations contain many risks and uncertainties. Principal risks and uncertainties that could cause our results to differ materially from our current expectations are detailed in our SEC filings. To find disclosures and reconciliations of non-GAAP measures that we use when discussing our financial results, you should refer to this morning's earnings release and to our SEC filings that can be found on our Investor Relations website.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Patrice.

Patrice Louvet

Thank you, Corinna. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining today's call. We were pleased to deliver another quarter of better-than-expected performance, including through the important holiday season. All three regions contributed positively to revenue growth. And at the same time, we made strong progress on the strategic priorities we outlined last September in our Next Great Chapter: Accelerate plan. We have multiple levers of growth and a broad lifestyle portfolio of products. Combined with the agility muscle our teams have built over the last several years, this puts us in a position of strength to become the world's leading luxury lifestyle company even amid macro uncertainty. A key element of this strategy is our commitment to brand and product elevation as we have demonstrated over the past five years, and we're doing all this while maintaining flexibility to respond to consumer demand and market dynamics. This translated to another quarter of double-digit AUR growth even as the broader marketplace became more promotional, as anticipated. We also continue to drive a culture of operating and cost discipline, which enabled us to meet our operating margin targets in the period. As our guidance reflected from the start of this fiscal year, the global environment has been choppy. We are encouraged that our core consumer has remained generally resilient, which reflects the growing desirability of our brand. At the same time, we continue to watch our more value-oriented customers and channels carefully. In this environment, we are taking a pragmatic approach to merchandising, pricing and inventory planning.