Aritzia Q2 Earnings: Guided 22% Growth Last Year, Delivered 35%
Aritzia reports second quarter fiscal 2027 earnings on Thursday, October 8, after the close, and the most useful thing to know going in is how its own guidance has behaved. In October 2025, with half of fiscal 2026 already reported, Aritzia guided full-year net revenue to $3.30 billion to $3.35 billion, growth of approximately 21% to 22%. The year came in at $3,702.1 million, growth of 35.2%, which is 10.5% above the top of its own range. Revenue consensus for Thursday, $1.119 billion, sits inside the guide Aritzia gave for the quarter. The adjusted diluted EPS consensus of $1.0506 is the Street’s own, since Aritzia guides revenue and margins but not earnings. Those are growth of 37.8% and 78.1% on the $812.054 million and $0.59 it reported a year ago. Consensus and price figures throughout are from Yahoo Finance. Aritzia reports in Canadian dollars, and fiscal 2027 ends February 28, 2027, so it is mostly calendar 2026.
One distinction decides whether Thursday reads as a beat at all. Consensus is an adjusted figure, not the IFRS one, and the two do not sit in a fixed order. Aritzia’s first quarter adjusted diluted EPS was $0.96 against IFRS diluted EPS of $0.99, and $0.96 is the figure the Street’s record for that quarter matches. In the year-ago second quarter the order reverses: adjusted was $0.59 against IFRS $0.56. Pair consensus with the wrong line and a few cents of accounting difference becomes a phantom beat. Our guide to how to read financial statements works through what Aritzia strips out of its adjusted figures, on the same filings.
Aritzia’s revenue guidance has been a floor, not an envelope
Both overshoots came from one release. In that second quarter fiscal 2026 earnings release, issued October 9, 2025, Aritzia also guided the third quarter to $875 million to $900 million of net revenue, approximately 20% to 24% growth. That quarter came in at $1,040.3 million, 15.6% above the top of the range.
That release also cut a margin guide. Aritzia lowered its fiscal 2027 adjusted EBITDA margin outlook to “high teens” from “approximately 19%”, naming the cause, “due to additional pressure from U.S. reciprocal tariffs and the elimination of the de minimis exemption”. It now guides approximately 19.5% for that year against a restated 17.8% in fiscal 2026. Both pressures remain in its forward risk list, named by the company as the offset against the 310 basis point gross margin gain it posted in the first quarter.
This year’s guide has already been raised once, from $4.4 billion to $4.6 billion at fourth quarter to $4.55 billion to $4.75 billion at first, so a second lift on Thursday would be a different event from a reiteration. Full-year consensus of $4,710.5 million sits inside the raised range too, about 80% of the way up it, the same shape as the quarter.
What the company guided for the quarter
Aritzia gave a second quarter outlook with its first quarter numbers (Q1 fiscal 2027 earnings release, page 3):
“Based on quarter-to-date trends, Aritzia expects net revenue in the range of $1.100 billion to $1.125 billion, representing growth of approximately 35% to 39%. The Company expects gross profit margin to increase approximately 250 bps to 300 bps from 43.8% in the second quarter of Fiscal 2026, and SG&A as a percentage of net revenue to decrease approximately 25 bps to 75 bps from 30.8% in the second quarter of Fiscal 2026.”
That guide went out on July 9, with roughly five of the quarter’s thirteen weeks already banked, which is what “quarter-to-date trends” means.
The company’s dollar range works out to 35.5% at $1.100 billion and 38.5% at $1.125 billion, so the Street’s 37.8% sits inside the guide, in its upper half, and has taken it at face value. The gross margin guide puts the quarter at 46.3% to 46.8%, read off the prior-year second quarter’s 43.8% and not the 50.3% of this year’s first quarter, a different quarter of a seasonal business.
The estimate history says the same thing. Thursday’s number stood at $0.8687 ninety days ago and $1.0506 now, and almost the whole move was a single 19.1% step between the 90 day and 60 day snapshots, the bracket containing Aritzia’s July 9 report and the guide quoted above. A pre-guidance estimate was replaced by a guidance-anchored one, and the bar has drifted 1.5% in the two months since. The rest of the year was marked up with it, fiscal 2027 by 6.3% and fiscal 2028 by 6.4% over the same 90 days. The next quarter’s number went the other way, down 0.6%, which is the default rather than a counterpoint, because Aritzia guides one quarter ahead only.
Gross profit margin by fiscal year as reported, from Aritzia’s Q4 and Fiscal 2026 Management’s Discussion and Analysis, page 6, and the equivalent table in each prior year-end MD&A.
The chart is annual: its 43.8% left endpoint is fiscal 2022, not the quarterly base of the second quarter guide, which is the same number. The line falls to 38.5% in fiscal 2024 and recovers to 44.9% in fiscal 2026, the base the full-year gross margin guide is quoted against, an increase of approximately 175 to 225 basis points.
Working the guided bands into dollars
In the year-ago second quarter Aritzia earned $355.630 million of gross profit on $812.054 million of net revenue and spent $250.213 million on SG&A, a gap of $105.417 million. The guided bands put gross margin at 46.3% to 46.8% and SG&A at 30.05% to 30.55%, a gap of 15.75 to 16.75 points of revenue, which on the guided revenue band is $173 million to $188 million. That is growth of 64.3% to 78.8%. The dollars and growth rates are ours: the company published a revenue range and two basis-point moves, and the rest is arithmetic on them.
The gap grows at roughly twice the rate of the top line. Consensus adjusted EPS growth of 78.1% falls inside that band, which is a bound rather than a position: gross profit less SG&A sits before stock-based compensation, finance expense, tax and other income, and the translation from one growth rate to the other ran 1.04 times in the first quarter and 1.51 times in the year-ago second quarter, wider than the band itself.
The other side of the year
The full-year gross margin guide implies a second-half step-down. At its midpoints, 46.90% on revenue of $4,650 million, and set against a first quarter that posted 50.3% and a second quarter guided to 46.3% to 46.8%, the first half lands near 48.28% and the second half near 45.80%, roughly 248 basis points lower. All three guides are the company’s own and the subtraction is ours.
The Street already carries the deceleration. Revenue growth goes from 37.8% this quarter to 19.45% next and adjusted EPS growth from 78.1% to 26.3%, on consensus of $1.2426 billion and $1.3895 for the 13 weeks ending in late November. Thursday also laps comparable sales growth of 21.6% in the second quarter of fiscal 2026.
The 14 EPS estimates run from $0.98 to $1.10 and the 15 revenue estimates from $1.092 billion to $1.147 billion, so the lowest of them sits below the $1.100 billion floor of Aritzia’s own guidance.
The lines to read on Thursday’s page
The US line matters most. In the first quarter, US revenue of $638.083 million grew 54.5% to 67.1% of the total, against 25.0% growth on $312.926 million in Canada, and 11 to 12 of the 12 to 13 new boutiques guided for the year are American.
New stores are not where most of the growth is coming from. First quarter comparable sales, which Aritzia’s non-IFRS measures define as combined growth in digital and established boutiques, grew 35.1%, and its own reconciliation puts $820.439 million of the $951.009 million quarter in that line. That existing base is the part of the case we weigh when ranking Aritzia on our Canadian growth stocks page.
Inventory is the cleanest read on whether the guided gross margin holds. It finished the first quarter at $547.8 million, up 33.8% against net revenue up 43.4%.
Currency reverses direction this quarter. The first quarter carried an FX headwind of negative $16.0 million, constant-currency net revenue of $967.0 million against $951.009 million reported. Over the 63 business days of the quarter, June 1 to August 30, 2026, the Bank of Canada’s daily US dollar rate averaged 1.4021 against 1.3720 a year earlier, 3.10% above the 1.36 USD:CAD assumption in its fiscal 2027 outlook. The pair rose 2.19%, which is the Canadian dollar 2.14% weaker, so Thursday’s constant-currency line should read below the reported one.
Aritzia spent C$66.2 million including commissions on 564,500 subordinate voting shares in the first quarter, at an average of C$117.33, and that money did not reduce the share count: diluted weighted average shares were 118,948 thousand against 118,210 thousand a year earlier.
Eight beats, and what has followed them
Aritzia has come in above consensus in each of its last eight quarters, by an average of 22.0% and a median of 16.3%. There is no miss anywhere in that window, so what follows describes what comes after a beat, not after a report.
The most recent report carries the pattern in one line. On July 9 Aritzia beat by 9.4%, $0.96 against $0.88. The stock rose 7.43% the next session, was down 5.18% thirty days later and down 17.25% ninety days later, the second worst 90 day outcome of the eight.
A hit rate means little without the stock’s own normal beside it, so we measured every window of the same length inside the same span, October 10, 2024 to October 7, 2026. The session after a report was positive 7 of 8 times, 87.5%, averaging 6.70%, against 54.3% of 499 single sessions averaging 0.22%. A split that far from the base rate has about a 6% chance of arising by luck, on eight observations with three horizons screened.
Thirty days out the record is 4 of 8 positive, averaging 8.27%, against a baseline 63.2% averaging 5.57%. At 90 days it is 5 of 8, averaging 11.62%, against a baseline 74.0% averaging 18.50%: holding through the 90 days after a report has done worse than holding through a randomly chosen 90 days in the same span. Both gaps are well inside luck, at about one time in three, and the overlapping baseline windows are fewer than they look, 478 at 30 days amounting to about 22 independent ones and 438 at 90 days to about seven.
Eight events describe a record, not a property of the stock, and all eight sit inside a single span that returned 146%.
Where the stock sits going in
At Wednesday’s close on October 7, 2026, Aritzia finished at C$123.28, up 1.68% from a prior close of C$121.24. That is 28.82% below its 52-week closing high of C$173.20, set June 15, 2026, 54.99% above its 52-week closing low of C$79.54, and 52.50% above the October 7, 2025 close of C$80.84. Yahoo Finance shows price targets from C$145.00 to C$216.00, mean C$183.43 and median C$189.00, the lowest 17.62% above the close.
| October 7 close | Session | |
|---|---|---|
| Aritzia | C$123.28 | +1.68% |
| S&P/TSX Composite | 35,041.86 | -1.70% |
| Gildan | C$58.81 | -0.78% |
| Dollarama | C$185.37 | -0.35% |
| Canadian Tire | C$190.11 | -0.77% |
| Lululemon (US) | US$91.88 | -1.85% |
On Wednesday, with the report due after Thursday’s close, Aritzia was the only one of those names to finish higher, while the index fell 1.70%. The sharper move into this print came about two weeks earlier, which we covered in Aritzia’s 8% two-session fall against a sector down 1.3%.
On consensus fiscal 2027 adjusted EPS of $4.9416, the close is 25.0 times this year’s expected earnings and 20.4 times the $6.0471 the Street carries for fiscal 2028, both our arithmetic on Yahoo’s consensus. Against expected growth of 52.05% this year that is a price/earnings-to-growth ratio of 0.48, and 0.91 on the forward multiple against the 22.37% growth the Street carries for next year. Estimates went up over the summer and have held while the stock de-rated.
Results land after market close on Thursday, October 8, 2026, covering the 13 weeks ending August 30, 2026, with the conference call at 1:30pm PT, 4:30pm ET, from Aritzia’s own scheduling advisory dated September 24, 2026. The lines that decide the reaction are the US number, gross margin against the guide, and whether the outlook gets lifted a second time.
Disclaimer: The content on bestcanadianstocks.ca is for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Always consult a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions. Aritzia’s own figures, guidance and both quotations come from the company’s First Quarter Fiscal 2027 earnings release (13 weeks ended May 31, 2026), with page citations held in our extraction. The year-ago second quarter comparatives, net revenue of $812.054 million, gross profit of $355.630 million, SG&A of $250.213 million and adjusted diluted EPS of $0.59, and the fiscal 2026 and third quarter fiscal 2026 guidance record, come from Aritzia’s own Second Quarter Fiscal 2026 earnings release dated October 9, 2025, not from any aggregator. The report date and conference call time come from Aritzia’s own scheduling advisory dated September 24, 2026. The five fiscal year gross margin chart is built from the company’s own Management’s Discussion and Analysis for fiscal 2022 through fiscal 2026 and is captioned with those documents and pages. Analyst consensus, the estimate revision history, the eight quarter beat record, the post report share price reactions, the price targets and every share price are from Yahoo Finance. The US dollar exchange rates are the Bank of Canada’s official daily rate. The reaction baseline is our own measurement on daily closes over the same span. Share prices are on a closing basis as of the October 7, 2026 close. Every percentage, multiple and derived dollar figure is our own arithmetic on those numbers and is labelled as ours in the article.
