Conferencia de resultados del segundo trimestre fiscal de 2026 de Ulta Beauty (ULTA): Eleva las previsiones de ventas y BPA

Ulta Beauty (NASDAQ: ULTA) informó de un crecimiento rentable en el segundo trimestre fiscal de 2026 y elevó sus previsiones de ventas y beneficios para todo el año. Las fragancias y el comercio digital lideraron el crecimiento, mientras que la dirección mantuvo la flexibilidad de cara a un segundo semestre más promocional e incierto.

Puntos clave

• Las ventas netas aumentaron un 8,9% interanual hasta los 3.000 millones de dólares, mientras que las ventas comparables crecieron un 3,8%, impulsadas por un ticket medio más alto, ya que las transacciones se mantuvieron prácticamente estables.
• El beneficio operativo creció un 10,1% hasta los 380 millones de dólares. El margen operativo mejoró 10 puntos básicos hasta el 12,5%, a pesar del modesto descenso del margen bruto.
• El BPA diluido aumentó un 13,3% hasta los 6,55 dólares, respaldado por el crecimiento del beneficio neto y las recompras de acciones.
• La categoría de fragancias registró un crecimiento de las ventas comparables en el rango alto del 10% al 20%, mientras que las ventas de comercio electrónico crecieron en un porcentaje similar. Las ventas comparables de maquillaje se mantuvieron prácticamente estables.
• Ulta Beauty elevó sus previsiones para el ejercicio fiscal 2026 a un crecimiento de las ventas netas del 6,7%–7,2% y un BPA diluido de 28,70–29,00 dólares.
• La empresa incrementó su objetivo de recompra de acciones para el ejercicio fiscal 2026 a 1.800 millones de dólares y prevé completar la autorización actual del consejo de administración durante el año.

Datos financieros principales

Rendimiento comercial y operativo

Las fragancias se mantuvieron como la categoría más fuerte de Ulta Beauty, con un crecimiento de las ventas comparables en el rango alto del 10% al 20%. La dirección citó la actividad del Día de la Madre y del Día del Padre, los lanzamientos exclusivos, los nuevos productos y la solidez de las marcas de lujo, entre ellas Prada, Carolina Herrera y YSL.

El cuidado del cabello registró un crecimiento de las ventas comparables de un dígito alto, liderado por productos capilares de prestigio, tratamientos y herramientas de peinado. Amika, Moroccanoil, Shark y T3 contribuyeron al rendimiento de la categoría.

Las ventas comparables de maquillaje se mantuvieron prácticamente estables. El crecimiento de un dígito bajo en el maquillaje de prestigio se vio compensado por un descenso de un dígito bajo en el maquillaje de gran consumo, donde varias marcas afrontaron comparaciones difíciles frente a los lanzamientos de productos del año anterior.

Las ventas comparables combinadas de cuidado de la piel y bienestar disminuyeron de forma modesta. El bienestar mantuvo un crecimiento de doble dígito y la cosmética coreana (K-Beauty) respaldó el cuidado de la piel, pero las menores ventas de cuidado corporal compensaron con creces esas ganancias. Los servicios registraron un crecimiento de las ventas comparables de un dígito medio, respaldados por los servicios de peluquería, perforación de orejas y maquillaje.

Las ventas de comercio electrónico crecieron en el rango alto del 10% al 20%, lo que marca el sexto trimestre consecutivo de crecimiento de doble dígito en el comercio. Más del 50% de los pedidos de comercio electrónico se gestionaron a través de la red de más de 1.500 tiendas de Ulta Beauty. La aplicación representó más del 60% de las ventas en línea.

El programa de fidelización alcanzó aproximadamente 47 millones de miembros activos, un 3% más, al tiempo que el gasto medio por miembro también aumentó. Ulta Beauty lanzó 15 marcas durante el trimestre y finalizó el periodo con más de 450 marcas en su marketplace y más de 12.000 referencias (SKU).

En el plano internacional, Space NK generó un sólido crecimiento de las ventas y continuó ganando cuota de mercado, según la dirección. Ulta Beauty cerró el trimestre con 12 tiendas en México, mientras que su socio de franquicia Alshaya continuó preparando las aperturas de tiendas en Oriente Medio previstas para finales de año.

Previsiones de la dirección

La dirección elevó sus previsiones para el ejercicio fiscal 2026 tras los resultados del primer semestre.

Para el segundo semestre, la dirección prevé un crecimiento de las ventas netas del 4%–5%, un crecimiento de las ventas comparables del 2%–3%, un crecimiento del beneficio operativo del 6%–8% y un crecimiento del BPA diluido del 9%–12%.

La empresa prevé una estacionalidad normal entre el Q3 y el Q4 fiscales. La dirección señaló que las inversiones previas a la temporada festiva deberían dar lugar a un menor crecimiento del BPA en el Q3 que en el Q4.

Riesgos y aspectos a vigilar

• La dirección describió a los consumidores como cada vez más enfocados en el valor en medio de la incertidumbre económica y el aumento de los gastos cotidianos, incluidos los elevados costes del combustible.
• El entorno promocional aumentó de forma modesta y Ulta Beauty llevó a cabo más promociones que el año anterior. Las perspectivas de la empresa incluyen flexibilidad para responder si la competencia se intensifica.
• El margen bruto del Q3 fiscal se enfrenta a una comparación difícil porque el periodo del año anterior se benefició del calendario de subidas de precios a escala de mercado aplicadas por determinadas marcas.
• La combinación de canales digitales y los costes del combustible siguen ejerciendo presión sobre el margen bruto, aunque la dirección espera que la productividad de la cadena de suministro y la gestión de pedidos desde las tiendas ayuden a compensarlos.
• Las comparaciones de crecimiento del segundo semestre son más exigentes. Las ventas comparables en el segundo semestre del ejercicio fiscal 2025 se situaron ligeramente por encima del 6%, frente a algo más del 4,5% en el primer semestre.
• Las condiciones geopolíticas siguen siendo un factor a considerar para la expansión prevista en Oriente Medio, aunque la dirección mantuvo su optimismo a largo plazo respecto a la región.

Puntos destacados de la sesión de preguntas y respuestas con analistas

Perspectivas del maquillaje: La dirección atribuyó la debilidad del maquillaje de gran consumo principalmente a la limitada innovación de productos y a las complejas comparaciones. Atisba una posible mejora impulsada por nuevos lanzamientos y por el interés de los consumidores en looks de rostro completo y un maquillaje de ojos más expresivo durante el segundo semestre.

Promociones y competencia: Ulta Beauty afirmó que no se limitará a perseguir a sus competidores. La dirección planea recurrir a la personalización, ofertas dirigidas, productos exclusivos y marketing, evaluando al mismo tiempo las promociones en función de la rentabilidad, el valor medio del pedido, la fidelización de los miembros y las ventas del surtido en general.

K-Beauty y belleza global: La dirección hizo hincapié en la calidad del producto, su eficacia y la selección curada en lugar de ampliar rápidamente el surtido. Asimismo, identificó la cosmética china (C-Beauty) y otras tendencias globales como posibles fuentes de innovación en el cuidado de la piel, maquillaje y cuidado del cabello.

Comportamiento del consumidor: La empresa señaló que no había observado un comportamiento notable de sustitución por productos de menor precio durante el trimestre. Según la dirección, el gasto aumentó en todos los segmentos de edad y nivel de ingresos.

Oportunidad en bienestar: Ulta Beauty está concentrando su surtido de bienestar en nutrición y suplementos, cuidado íntimo, descanso y relajación, y rutinas esenciales. La dirección considera el bienestar como una categoría de crecimiento potencial a largo plazo que podría aumentar la frecuencia de compra sin canibalizar las ventas existentes.

Transcripción completa de la conferencia de resultados

Transcripción completa de la conferencia de resultados

Comentarios de la dirección

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, our 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.

To allow us to accommodate as many questions as possible during the hour scheduled for this call. We respectfully ask that you limit your time to one question with no more than one follow-up question. 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 omnichannel ecosystem, our stores. We fuel 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 maximize key selling opportunities and drove guest excitement in sales during key events like the Big Center 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 indoor traffic, strong guest engagement and sales. 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, omnichannel 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 first live celebrity fragrance launch by Rapper, Ice Spice. We also used our new Chelsea New York store as a TikTok shop live shopping video, 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 that 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 closely relevant brand launches that are bringing excitement and discovery to the category. During the second quarter, we launched several new and exclusive fragrances, including [ Cloud R ], by Drake's Better World fragrance, [ XO Blue ] by Khloé Kardashian, [ Pacro Summer ] by Megan Stallion, and [ Victor & Roth’s Bond ] collection among several others.

[ Branding ] 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 live 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 five new K-Beauty brands, including Dr. [ Milan Nelonen ], Dr. Rio, [ Dia ] and [ Centalin24 ], 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 for 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 neatness 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 Tilburys'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 to rule summer campaign, Champion self-expression, amplified through our partnership with Super Girl and Milly Alcock across high-impact theater, store and social experiences that invited every beauty lever 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 our 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, remain total stores to 12 at the end of the quarter. The team went into the excitement of the World Cup as a sponsor of [ Campell Martes ] in our national Software 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 seven 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 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 guests, and we're fueling incremental growth through this important element of our business. We held our [ inaugural ] find your feel good wellness event, which sparks meaningful guest engagement and awareness. We built on our first for success incorporating wellness into our strategic temple events like big summer beauty sales and continue to elevate our assortment with the addition of four 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 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 guests, improve efficiency and help offset the impact of rising fuel costs. In addition, our AI-powered sourcing capabilities continue to optimize the omnichannel 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 discovery, we have scaled content creation and a much 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 and 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 actual 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 guest choice and flexibility to shop on any budget, a seamless omnichannel experience for convenience 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 guests, 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, omnichannel 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 guests 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 the 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 one 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 noise through its innovative milk sent 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 Sacred, 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 HAFMAGIC 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 ], [ Mary Roots ], in Cymbiotika as well as self care brands, including Therabody and Sage driving category performance. Prestige and mass skin care continue to contribute to growth as K-Beauty brands, including Medicube, [ Anula ], an exclusive brand, Peach & Lily, a 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 lap 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 for 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 poor 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 for 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 detect 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 unleash 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 briefings 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.

Preguntas y respuestas

Rupesh Parikh

And also 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 lack 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 with 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 of 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 brand days. We did participate in that, and we had planned in that in doing that in this quarter.

There's three 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 and 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 the 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 the 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, down 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

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 to our guests, attract the best brands, and those brands bring greater newness and exclusivity 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 the assortment innovation of bringing the best and 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 creating 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 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 our store fulfillment climbs pass 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 two 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 2-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 company.

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 have my congratulations, well done. It's 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 teams get opportunity is all 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 haircare, primarily haircare.

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, we've really focused on four 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 and 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, 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...

Kecia Steelman

Yes, absolutely. I would just like to thank you for joining us today. And to wrap up, I would 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.