Urban Outfitters, Inc. (URBN) Q1 2027 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Urban Outfitters, Inc. First Quarter Fiscal '27 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to Oona McCullough, Executive Director of Investor Relations. Ms. McCullough, you may begin.

Good afternoon, and welcome to the URBN First Quarter Fiscal 2027 Earnings Conference Call. Earlier this afternoon, the company issued a press release outlining the financial and operating results for the 3-month period ending April 30, 2026. The following discussions may include forward-looking statements. Please note that actual results may differ materially from those statements. Additional information concerning factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from projected results is contained in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. For more detailed commentary on our quarterly performance and the text of today's conference call, please refer to our Investor Relations website at www.urbn.com. I will now turn the call over to Dick.

Thank you, Oona. In the first quarter, our teams once again produced record quarterly sales and earnings per share. Net sales grew 11% to $1.5 billion and EPS grew 12% to $1.30. This marks the seventh consecutive quarter of record sales and profits for URBN. I salute our extraordinary teams for their talent and remarkable consistency. All retail segment brands delivered positive comps with standout performance from Free People and FP Movement. You will hear more on both of these brands from their CEO, Sheila Harrington, in a few minutes. Our other segments, wholesale and subscription also produced outstanding results and were instrumental in driving these record results. Frank Conforti, our Co-President and Chief Operating Officer, will now provide the details of our Q1 performance. After Frank, Sheila will talk about the Free People Group. Following her, Melanie Marein-Efron, our CFO, will walk you through our outlook for Q2 and the second half of the year. I will then wrap things up with a few closing thoughts before we open the call to your questions. Frank, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Dick, and good afternoon, everyone. Today, I'm excited to share our company's first quarter record results compared to last year. Then I will dive into some detailed notes by brand followed by a tariff and fuel cost update. Overall, our teams delivered another outstanding quarter, exceeding our plans and setting new sales and operating profit records. Total URBN sales grew by over 11%, reaching a Q1 record of $1.5 billion. All our Retail segment brands delivered positive Retail segment comps while 4 of our 5 brands posted record first quarter sales. Nuuly continued its impressive double-digit revenue growth, and our Wholesale segment also delivered exceptional double-digit revenue growth. Our total URBN sales growth was partly driven by a 6% increase in the Retail segment comp with digital comps slightly exceeding store comps. Nuuly delivered strong 35% revenue growth, driven primarily by an increase of over 110,000 average active subscribers compared to Q1 last year. Additionally, the Wholesale segment delivered a 25% increase in revenue, driven by growth across both specialty and department store accounts. Next, I will turn your attention to gross profit. URBN saw an 11% increase in gross profit dollars, while the gross profit rate decreased by 16 basis points to 36.6%. The decrease in gross profit rate versus the prior year is due to a $5 million or 36 basis point onetime benefit received in the prior year. This deleverage was partially offset by an improvement in total company markdown rate, driven by lower markdown rates at the Free People and Urban Outfitters brands. In the quarter, SG&A increased by 12%, deleveraging by 5 basis points. I want to note that SG&A in the quarter included a $7 million or 47 basis points benefit from a favorable resolution of a legal matter. The increase in SG&A dollars was driven by increased store payroll expenses to support the growth in store net sales, marketing investments at several of our brands and investments in technology. The marketing efforts drove increases in traffic, both in stores and online for the total URBN Retail segment, while Nuuly's marketing campaigns resulted in healthy double-digit growth in average active subscribers. The technology investments relate to several exciting AI-related projects that we anticipate to benefit the company for years to come. Overall, total URBN operating income grew by 9% compared to last year reaching a Q1 record of $140 million. During the quarter, we repurchased 4.6 million shares for approximately $300 million. These recent share repurchases reduced our outstanding shares by 5%. Net income increased to $116 million, while earnings per share increased by 12% to $1.30 per diluted share. Moving on to brand performance, starting with Anthropologie. As noted on the last call, the Anthropologie team had a slow start to the quarter as the brand cleared through some slower-moving winter products. As fresh spring receipts began to impact the assortment in March, the brand saw the business respond nicely with positive comps in March and April. For the full quarter, Anthropologie delivered a positive 2% retail segment comp. This marks over 5 years of positive comps produced by the Anthropologie brand. The positive Retail segment comp was driven by positive comps in women's apparel, shoes and home partially offset by a negative comp in accessories. Apparel growth was fueled by a continuation of the strong bottom cycle and a nicely positive dress comp, which is great to see for the brand. Turning to the Home category. Performance was primarily driven by recent improvements in furniture, which we believe presents an opportunity for growth in the coming year as we continue to lean into the brand's unique home aesthetic. Through strong execution in product, marketing and creative content, the Anthropologie team successfully fostered broad-based customer growth and engagement this quarter. This integrated approach not only drove positive traffic trends across their store and digital channels, but was also key to expanding the customer base. Overall, we are pleased with the brand's execution and based on our current plans, we believe the brand has the ability to deliver low to mid-single-digit positive comps in the second quarter. Now turning to the Urban Outfitters brand, which continued to build meaningful momentum in the first quarter on top of last year's positive performance. Total Urban Outfitters sales grew by over 11% and the global Retail segment comp was 9% with strength across both North America and Europe. Digital comps outpaced store comps in North America, while in Europe, the store business led the digital channel. In North America, the team delivered positive comps across women's apparel, accessories and home. Within women's apparel, the strong bottoms trend continues to fuel growth complemented by incredible performance in their key items. The positive Retail segment comp was driven by reg price sales, which outpaced total comp. The brand's marketing initiatives fueled positive traffic in both stores and digital this quarter, resulting in double-digit growth in new customer acquisition while maintaining high retention rates across their existing base. This success is rooted in the brand's strategic commitment to platform diversification, meeting their audience wherever they engage. The brand was excited to launch DoorDash in April, which successfully expanded through May, and they are incredibly encouraged by the early conversion and reach of this partnership. Furthermore, the brand has evolved their influencer model to lean heavily into user-generated content. The brand's recent spring campaign served as a powerful proof point for this shift, as it was uniquely shaped by the brand's creators and customers. By transitioning to a more community-oriented campaign structure, the brand is fostering a deeper, more authentic connection with their audience. In Europe, the business continues to be a standout performer. The European team produced a remarkable 12% retail segment comp despite being up against healthy comparisons versus the prior year. European stores outperformed the digital channel, leading to a nice increase in profitability for the quarter. Their consistent execution in product and marketing is allowing them to continue capturing meaningful market share. We are pleased by the progress of the global Urban Outfitters brand. We believe the brand is well positioned to deliver high single-digit positive Retail segment comps for the second quarter while continuing to make meaningful progress in growing their profitability. Now moving to the Nuuly brand, which delivered another strong performance this quarter, continuing to scale both its subscriber base and its financial results. Total revenue grew by 35%, driven by a 33% increase in average active subscribers. This was an increase of 110,000 average active subscribers compared to the prior year Q1. And as of today, the brand is currently sitting on the doorstep of 0.5 million active subscribers. This subscriber growth reflects continued strong demand for the service, supported by effective marketing campaigns and healthy subscriber retention. Nuuly generated operating profit of $10 million in the first quarter, representing a 6% operating profit rate. This improvement was driven by operating leverage as the business scales, partially offset by continued marketing investments to sustained subscriber growth. The brand's ability to grow its subscriber base while simultaneously improving its economics is a meaningful indicator of the health and scalability of this business. We remain committed to scaling Nuuly toward its significant long-term potential while continuing to improve its profitability. The last topic I want to address is the overall tariff and freight environment and its impact on our business. First, let's discuss fuel costs. We are currently navigating higher inbound freight costs and higher delivery expenses driven by fuel surcharges associated with the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. We are assuming these costs will remain consistent for the remainder of the year. These additional costs could have a negative impact of approximately 45 basis points in IMU relating to higher inbound costs and 25 basis points in outbound delivery and freight expense due to increased fuel surcharges. If the price of oil declines and holds at any point in time in the future, we would expect to see a corresponding reduction in these increased expenses. Next, let's discuss tariffs. Navigating the current tariff landscape is difficult and seemingly ever changing. Let me try to organize it as best I can. I will start in chronological order. The IEEPA tariffs imposed last spring were declared illegal this spring. In some countries, such as India, where we source a meaningful amount of product, the tariff rates reached as high as 50% from August last year through the start of fiscal year '27. In the meantime, these IEEPA tariffs were used to negotiate bilateral tariff agreements with most of the countries from which we source our products. The agreed-upon bilateral tariff rates varied from 10% to 22%. We have filed for refunds from the IEEPA tariffs imposed in the spring of last year and expect to receive approximately $100 million in refunds in the second quarter. We are planning to record these refunds as a onetime benefit in the second quarter. After the IEEPA tariffs were ruled illegal, the administration quickly imposed a new 10% Section 122 tariff on almost all imports. These tariffs took effect in mid-March and run through the end of July. These have now also been ruled illegal, but we are required to continue to pay them. It is possible we will receive refunds on the Section 122 tariffs sometime in the future. There is much uncertainty regarding what will happen once the Section 122 tariffs expire. But since a number of bilateral agreements were reached under the IEEPA tariffs, we assume that some form of tariffs, similar to those agreements will be imposed. So in order to plan conservatively, we are planning for a 15% across-the-board tariff for our imports in the second half of the year. If it turns out receipts from any country face a different charge than 15%, we will have an additional cost or benefit versus our plan. The good news is, if our 15% estimated rate is reasonably accurate to what actually occurs, we will have a net favorable benefit to IMU in the second half of the current year. That benefit does take into consideration the additional fuel costs we expect to pay during that period. In summary, the record-breaking first quarter of fiscal year '27 reflects the underlying strength of our diversified brand portfolio. Total revenue grew over 11%. Free People delivered a standout performance across both retail and wholesale. Urban Outfitters continued its strong top line comp alongside meaningful operating results improvement. Nuuly robustly grew its average active subscriber base while continuing to improve their profits and our Wholesale segment delivered exceptional results. Anthropologie quickly responded to a slow start to the quarter and as fresh new spring and summer products arrived, their comp sales performance improved nicely. We entered the second quarter proud of all of our team's performance and confident in our growth plans. Now I will turn the call over to Sheila Harrington, Global CEO of Free People Group and the Urban Outfitters brand. Thank you.

Thank you, Frank. For the purposes of this discussion, FP Group refers to the entire brand footprint, spanning both Free People and FP Movement across all retail segments and wholesale channels. Both Free People and FP Movement delivered an exceptional strong quarter. Total FP Group revenue increased 17% year-over-year, driven by sustained momentum across both of our wholesale and retail segments. Wholesale revenue surged 26%, while the Retail segment grew 14%. This includes a 10% Retail segment comp, marking our 24th consecutive quarter or 6 full years of positive Retail segment comps for the FP Group. The Free People brand delivered total revenue growth of 12%, with wholesale up 16% and the Retail segment up 11%, driven by a 9% Retail segment comp. FP Movement continued its impressive trajectory, delivering total brand revenue growth of 32%. This was driven by a 15% retail segment comp, strong non-comp performance, 6 new store openings in the quarter and 48% wholesale growth. This success was directly supported by well-executed product distortion and impactful creative marketing in both brands. In addition to the strong top line performance, total FP Group delivered record first quarter profitability. Both Free People and FP Movement achieved record low markdown rates, fueled by exceptional reg price selling that outpaced total sales growth. Total brand profitability also benefited from strong store performance, which outpaced digital alongside meaningful leverage within the wholesale channel. For the Free People brand, there was broad-based strength across the entire assortment, including tops, bottoms, intimates and accessories. Furthermore, store performance nicely outpaced digital across North America and Europe. This was driven by positive traffic and conversion trends as well as higher transaction values. This metric reflects the power of our regular price selling, a favorable product mix and our continued investment in elevating product quality. On the marketing front, the brand executed a highly successful creative digital campaign, the Art of the Pant. This initiative showcased the originality and elevated positioning of our pant assortment while celebrating creativity within the broader art community. The campaign exceeded our expectations, driving robust new customer acquisition. Turning to FP Movement. Notably, a strategic emphasis on our bottoms and bra categories drove outpaced performance and double-digit new customer acquisition. Similar to Free People, these results were supported by strong full price selling. Despite IMU headwinds related to tariffs during the quarter, disciplined execution allowed the brand to deliver year-over-year merchandise margin improvements. FP Movement continues to gain significant cultural relevance, reinforcing its position as a distinct and unique growth vehicle within the URBN portfolio. During the first quarter, the brand successfully activated key partnerships, including a collaboration with Barry's, the leading high-intensity training studio chain, which expanded into Selfridges in London. This activation successfully elevated the brand's visibility globally. Now I want to take a moment to discuss the longer-term strategic outlook for both Free People and FP Movement. We have reached a critical inflection point where we no longer view these as parent and sub-brand. Instead, we are managing them as 2 independent ecosystems, each serving genuinely different market opportunities. I want to be clear, this evolution is not a sudden shift, but a deliberate and strategic transition. We are moving thoughtfully to ensure we maximize what is best for both brands, not just from a top line perspective, but through the lens of disciplined expense management and intellectual leverage. By sharing our collective expertise and proven brand-building playbooks, we ensure that each ecosystem grows. It does so with the operational wisdom and efficiency of the entire FP Group. These two ecosystems coexist perfectly. Free People continues to anchor our portfolio with its decade-long legacy of creative storytelling and creative original products, while FP Movement is strategically architected to lead the activewear market through a unique fusion of technical performance and elevated style. By decoupling their growth strategies, we can pursue each opportunity with singular focus anchored always by the unwavering commitment to creativity and the value of original ideas. By anchoring Free People and FP Movement in their own singular authentic voices, we are feeding digital platforms that remember brand identity. This maximizes our discoverability today and deepens our competitive moat for years to come. We believe this dual ecosystem approach positions us uniquely for an AI-driven world. Turning to the Free People brand. We continue to build formidable momentum across 4 strategic pillars. First, our international expansion remains a high conviction opportunity. We currently operate 13 European locations, and our wholesale business remains underpenetrated, leaving us a massive runway for growth. Our recent sharp entry into Scotland with the Edinburgh opening is a perfect example of the international opportunity ahead of us. This success, combined with double-digit retail segment comp growth and strong 4-wall profitability in the European market reinforces our commitment to keep global expansion at the forefront of our long-term strategy. Second, we are aggressively modernizing our domestic footprint across both retail and wholesale. In our Retail segment, we are strategically evolving our store base, investing in larger format locations and high-impact remodels that are already yielding meaningful sales lift and deepening our consumer engagement. Simultaneously, we are scaling our wholesale business through thoughtful category expansion. By aligning with correctly positioned partners across our portfolio of labels, including We the Free, Free-est and Intimately FP, we are capturing new demographics and broadening our market reach without compromising our brand integrity. Third, brand elevation remains our North Star. We believe that when we lead with distinctive and uniquely designed product, uncompromising quality and clear value, we solidify our emotional connection with our customer. This is powered by our agile sourcing strategy, which gives us the speed to react to emerging trends and maximize market opportunities in real time. Finally, we are focused on the evolution of our digital platform. The enduring consistency of the Free People brand provides the perfect foundation to leverage AI-driven tools. We have begun to use these technologies to optimize customer acquisition and build a scalable digital environment that speaks with a singular authentic voice. Now turning to FP Movement. As we accelerate this brand's growth, I would like to call out our new President, Andrea Perez, now leading the brand. With this dedicated leadership in place, we are positioned to be a major disruptor in the activewear space. We are not simply participating in the category, we are redefining it. Our strategy is focused on 4 key areas of growth. First, we are aggressively expanding our consumer ecosystem. We know that FP Movement's appeal extends far beyond the core Free People base, and the results bear this out. In Q1, we saw FP Movement-only consumers continue to grow significantly and continue to build momentum year-over-year. We are building a distinct identity through elevated storytelling while ensuring our content is AI ready to drive compounded returns on discoverability as digital platforms evolve. Second, we continue to scale through domestic optimization. Store expansion remains a proven high-return lever for us. After ending last year with 25 new store openings to reach 88 stand-alone locations, we have more than 20 new store openings planned for this current fiscal year. Our shop-in-shop model remains a highly successful incubator for these stand-alone stores. In fact, in several markets, we are seeing productivity and profitability that exceeds our legacy benchmarks. Additionally, to support the growth in the wholesale channel, we are being incredibly intentional targeting premium specialty partners, including boutique studios and outdoor retailers that reinforce our brand authority. Third, we are turning our focus to international expansion. The global opportunity for FP Movement is compelling and untapped. We will lead our international growth through a strategic mix of wholesale partnerships and direct-to-consumer channels, allowing us to scale brand awareness rapidly while remaining a deep authentic connection with our global community. Finally, our fourth pillar. We remain obsessed with product innovation and technical performance. We understand that today's active consumer refuses to choose between function and fashion, and FP Movement is engineered exactly at this intersection. We will continue to lean into this white space where elevated style meets authentic athletic functionality. This is our competitive advantage, and we intend to widen it. In closing, we have 2 distinct brands with real momentum, long-term strategic opportunities, focused teams and strong new leadership executing against them. We are confident and excited about our long-term success. Finally, I want to thank Meg and the creative teams in both brands. Andrea along with entire Free People and FP Movement teams for your shared passion, creativity and unwavering focus on our consumer. I now turn the call over to Melanie.

Thank you, Sheila, and good afternoon, everyone. On today's call, I will discuss our thoughts on the second quarter and full year fiscal '27. We're off to a solid start this quarter. And based on what we're seeing so far, we are planning for Q2 total company sales to grow in the high single digit. In our Retail segment, comp sales could grow mid-single digit, driven by high single-digit positive Retail segment comps at Urban Outfitters and FP Group, while Anthropologie brand could be low to mid-single-digit positive comps. At Nuuly, the brand could deliver mid- to high 20s revenue growth, driven by continued subscriber momentum. Finally, our Wholesale segment could produce mid-teens growth. We continue to believe we could deliver positive high single-digit total company sales growth for the full year fiscal '27. This growth could be driven by mid-single-digit Retail segment comps, mid-20s revenue growth at Nuuly and high single-digit growth for the Wholesale segment. Based on our current plans, we believe our full fiscal year '27 gross profit margins could be up approximately 25 basis points versus last year, with the second half showing a benefit to IMU. This guidance reflects the current Section 122 tariffs at 10% until the end of July and an estimated 15% blended tariff for the second half of the year. In addition, we are assuming that current oil surcharges related to the Middle East conflict remain in effect for the remainder of fiscal year '27. These surcharges, which began in March, impact inbound freight and delivery and outbound freight expenses. Based on current surcharges, they represent approximately 70 basis points unfavorable impact per quarter. Based on the current sales performance and plans, we believe our second quarter gross profit margins could be flat to down by approximately 25 basis points versus last year. The reduction in Q2 gross profit rate could be primarily due to lower IMU due to the increased tariffs versus last year, along with the fuel surcharges. Based on current sales performance and financial plan, we believe Q2 total growth in SG&A could grow at or slightly ahead of sales growth due to marketing investments at all brands to support new customer acquisition, along with increased technology investments. These technology investments relate to several AI-related projects. We believe that these technological investments will provide significant benefits for years to come. Now for the full year, we believe SG&A growth could grow at a rate in line with sales growth. As always, if sales performance fluctuates, we maintain a certain level of variable SG&A spending that we can fluctuate up and down depending on how our business is performing. We're planning for an effective tax rate of approximately 22.5% for Q2 and the full year. Now moving on to inventory. We continue to be focused on increasing our product turns. We believe that inventory levels could grow at a rate at or below sales growth. For fiscal year '27, capital expenditures are planned at approximately $475 million. The fiscal year '27 capital project spend is broken down as follows: approximately 35% for retail store expansion and support, approximately 50% for logistics investments and the remaining 15% for technology investments and home office expansion to support our growing businesses. The logistics investments are to expand our capacity and automation in both the subscription and retail segment businesses. We will be opening approximately 54 new stores and closing approximately 19 stores during fiscal year '27. Our net new store growth is primarily being driven by growth in FP Movement, Free People and Anthropologie stores. During fiscal year '27, we plan on opening 21 FP Movement stores, 12 Free People stores, 13 Anthropologie stores and 8 Urban Outfitters stores. As a reminder, the foregoing does not constitute a forecast, but is simply a reflection of our current fees. The company disclaims any obligation to update forward-looking statements. Now it is my pleasure to turn the call back to Dick Hayne, Chief Executive Officer of URBN.

Thank you, Mel. Sheila, once again, congratulations to you and both the Free People and FP Movement teams on the exceptional quarter you produced. The results speak for themselves. It is a credit to the talent and creativity you have built within both teams. So thank you. In addition to the FP Group, I am proud of what all teams delivered in the first quarter. Every one of our retail segment brands posted positive comps. This is no coincidence. It is the result of years of disciplined investment in our brands, our people and the experiences we create for our customers. Beyond retail, the wholesale and subscription segments also posted strong double-digit revenue growth and solid profitability. What gives me confidence as we look ahead to the rest of the year is not just the numbers, but the underlying health of the business. Free People and FP Movement are performing with genuine distinction. Urban Outfitters is on a clear and meaningful path forward in North America and is already excelling in Europe. Anthropologie showed real resilience, turning a slow Q1 into a positive comp as well-received products hit the shelves in March and April. Nuuly continues to scale with impressive speed, well on its way to the magic $1 billion goal. And our wholesale business is delivering outstanding top and bottom line results. Taken together, this portfolio gives us confidence that our brands have the opportunity to deliver positive comps for the full year with margin expansion and record profitability. The strength of our business is built on the talent, creativity and dedication of our teams. However, even the most talented team can and will have an occasional off-season. The consistency of URBN, which has allowed for 7 consecutive quarters of record sales and profits, stem from our diversification. From our first store near the University of Pennsylvania campus, which offered multiple product categories in a lifestyle setting to geographic diversification beyond Philadelphia and later outside the U.S. to the introduction of additional retail brands and distribution channels and most recently, the launch of a subscription rental brand, the history of our company is one of progressive diversification. It is a genuine competitive advantage that our talented teams bring to life every day. No matter how talented our teams are, we remain dependent on the health of our customers. Much has been written about the consumer in a K-shaped economy. My observations today focus on our specific customer set, most of whom reside in the top half of that K. Despite the daily noise and turmoil in the macro environment, our customer shopping behavior has remained remarkably consistent over the past few years, including the current year-to-date. They remain positive and continue to engage enthusiastically with our brands, responding to fashion newness and seeking the quality and creativity that define what we do. In short, our customers are in excellent shape. They are financially secure and are more interested in fashion than price. With a strong customer base, a diversified portfolio of distinguished brands and outstanding teams, we believe our future shines very bright. In closing, I offer our sincere thanks to the entire URBN family, especially to our Co-Presidents, Meg and Frank and all of our brand leaders. I also want to thank our global partners and our shareholders for their continued support. That concludes our prepared remarks. We now invite your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Lorraine Hutchinson with Bank of America.

Just dig into Anthro a little deeper. What did you fix? What was the impact on margins? And how comfortable are you with the brand's ability to continue to profitably comp positive?

Lorraine, this is Tricia. I'll speak to that. We were really pleased with the progress that our teams made throughout our Q1 performance. As we shared on the February earnings call, we had a soft start, as Dick and Frank mentioned, the quarter in February. But as the quarter progressed and new spring receipts were received in mid-March, we saw a return to our prior trend on the higher end of our low single-digit comps in March and April. The results were really driven by the strength in core women's categories like pants, denim, dresses and shoes as well as Mother's Day gifting categories like beauty. In addition to the continued momentum we're seeing in full-price furniture sales really drove our home comps nicely positive. We ended the quarter with a 2 comp, driven by a full price comp increase as well as increases in traffic and AUR in both channels. We also see May month-to-date performance more similarly to how we exited Q1 than how we began, and we're planning low to mid-single-digit comps in the quarter. So I think to Dick's point around the resilience, our teams have built the ability to be able to react to newness, be able to fuel that newness and the continued strength that the teams have delivered over the last 21 consecutive quarters of comps and the strength of our own brands, we really feel like we'll see progress and feel like we can deliver on that plan.

Our next question comes from the line of Paul Lejuez with Citi.

I'd love to hear how the other brands are running relative to the comp guidance that you gave on the prepared remarks. And then also, just would love to hear a little bit more about the Europe market generally. Just anything differences by country that you could talk about? And what sort of traffic patterns you might have seen, if anything, change over the last several weeks?

Okay. Paul, this is Dick. I'll take both questions. First, the May sales to date. I think you knew and you heard in our prerecord that we're planning on high single-digit total revenue growth in the second quarter and with retail segment comp growth by brand planned between low and mid-single digits for Anthropologie and high single digits for the Free People, FP Movement and Urban brands. Sales month-to-date in May are essentially in line with those plans. Now as for Europe, the European market, as you know, is reasonably soft. The economies are struggling, among other reasons, largely around high energy prices. And of course, this is especially true in Germany. However, when we look at the Urban -- the European demand for our Urban and Free People brands, it's actually quite brisk with comp store sales posting double-digit gains. This isn't normal on the high street. So the only explanation I can come up with is we have very good product, and we're taking market share.

Our next question comes from the line of Matthew Boss with JPMorgan.

So Dick, I think you made a great point on consistency. So your portfolio kicking off -- your portfolio is kicking off a seventh year of at least mid-single-digit minimum comps. So as we think about how your portfolio is positioned regardless of the macro, what do you think the difference is? Like how would you think about differentiation across the brands to be able to produce that level of consistency on a year in and year out basis?

Thanks, Matt. Well, I don't want to say that the brands are always consistent. As I mentioned, there's ups and downs in each of the brands. What allows for the consistency across URBN is the fact that when some brands are way up, some other brands might be less up. And so we get that consistency. It's very much like the way you folks manage your portfolios. And so we're very pleased with that concept. We think it's working, and we feel that it is a real plus. And that's -- next question.

Our next question comes from the line of Simeon Siegel with Guggenheim Securities.

Nice job. How much did improving UO profitability add to total URBN EBIT margin? How should we think about that opportunity there? And then just what's the right way to think about how you're thinking about repurchases now, just given that meaningful 1Q buyback?

Okay. I'm going to ask Frank to take that.

I can touch on Urban. So obviously, the brand hit profitability last year. And in the first quarter, they continue to build upon that and drove improved profitability. We're still on track, targeting low single-digit operating profit rate for the global brand for the full year this year and still believe that we should be able to get to a high single-digit operating profit rate as we continue to build top line sales comp.

Our next question comes from the line of Jay Sole with UBS.

A lot of discussion about AI in the prepared remarks. Maybe, Dick, can you just talk about the potential you see for AI? And maybe give us some specific examples, anecdotes, if you will, of how you're applying AI into the business and how it's driving improvement and what gets you excited for more opportunities going forward?

Jay, I would love to do that, but I'm going to hand it over to my son, Dave, who does this day in and day out and is quite familiar with all the things that we're doing.

Yes. Obviously, a lot going on in the world right now, lots of people talking about AI. We are doing the same. I feel like I'm meeting about it all day, every day at this point. Look, there's an incredible amount of opportunity for AI to impact the company all across URBN. We are hard at work deploying AI and machine learning across the company. Much of our online experience right now has been and is even more so now driven by AI. AI is driving our personalization and recommendation algorithms, a lot of our search and discovery across our websites. AI is enhancing our product listings on our websites. It's translating our websites. It's helping with order fraud screening and optimizing our logistics operations. We have recently launched an AI customer service agent that's helping to respond to customer service inquiries faster and more efficiently. That's been a nice win. The tech teams that I oversee are using AI constantly throughout the day, helping to improve their code, helping to improve every function that they do basically, helping them do it faster and more efficiently. All of our teams across the entire company now are -- have Gemini, and they are deployed across the entire company. We are rolling out Claude and other AI tools to help our teams be more efficient. That's a big initiative now. We're also focused heavily on AI being deployed across our creative and merchant teams. We think there's a big opportunity to help accelerate our product development life cycle, which is a big focus of the company. So there are dozens of other ways. Those are just some, but there are dozens of other ways that AI is going to affect the company. We're very excited about it. It's going to be touching everything, and we are moving aggressively to deploy and make ourselves more efficient.

Thanks, Dave. Jay, I would just add that we are very, very committed to increasing the usage of AI in just about everything that we do. And we are in the first inning of actualizing that and we are going to be going as fast as we possibly can.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Janet Joseph Kloppenburg with JJK Research.

Hi, everybody. Congratulations. It's really impressive quarter, very impressive. I wanted to talk to Tricia about the turnaround to, I think, mid-single-digit comps in March and April. And that suggests to me that the lead times of the brand are much more efficient than they've been in the past. And I wondered if you could talk about that and where you are in that cycle.

Yes. Thanks, Janet. I think the team towards the end of third quarter, started to read some opportunities for some growth, and they really deployed some of our shorter lead opportunities to develop product through Q4 that we really started to see in March, as I had mentioned, that improved our business. I think we have built a varied model that allows us to read and react and allows us to chase into it. So I wouldn't say that the entire model has changed, Janet, but it's given us opportunities to react to some of those opportunities as they present themselves. I'm incredibly proud of the team for their ability to be able to turn that. And as March and April performed so significantly better than February and as we see the opportunity again in May, I really see kind of that continued long-term strategic opportunity to grow our own brands and to have that deliver the type of profitability and exclusivity that they do continue. So thanks for the question. I think there's lots of opportunity for us to continue to read and react to the business.

And Janet, this is Frank. I just want to add, as Dave mentioned, I think one of the most impactful initiatives that we're working on is our ability to utilize technology to speed up our product life cycle. As you know, the closer end consumer demand, we can choose product. The more accurate we're going to be, the better off our sales are going to be, the lower our markdown rates are going to be. And we think the technology is going to be a big unlock there, and it's something that we're really excited about, and we are in the early innings of working through what that can look like.

And our last question comes from the line of Mark Friedman of The Retail Tracker.

For Shea, Marni and I wanted to know with the momentum building at Urban and so many partnerships, collabs, we continue to invest in marketing and specifically in-store events that create a third space for your shoppers? And then also for Trish, the accessories assortment has looked good, riding the wave of many key trends. Is there an opportunity to push the limit, especially in handbags, for your own branded product -- with your own branded product to bring authority to the brand?

Mark, it's Shea. I'll start. First, our team and our marketing strategy is really focused on meeting our customer in the places and moments that matter. And increasingly, that means across a variety of social platforms, whether that's ChatGPT or Reddit, or Pinterest. But you're right, the store is also a really important platform for us. It's not just a place that we sell stuff. It's a place where we build community. And so it's in that spirit that we absolutely have a number of events lined up. The World Cup is coming up as an example. We've got a lot of great events planned around that. We have locally right here in Philadelphia, the MLB All-Star game that we're activating around. And then something that we're really excited about in the brand every year is the back-to-campus season where we get out and get out to college, celebrate kids getting back on campus and welcoming them back into our stores. So absolutely, we're excited to activate in our stores and hope our customers are, too.

And Mark, I'll take -- thank you for recognizing the work that the team has done and you and Marni on the accessories category. I think recently, we're starting to see some green shoots in the category as our summer product has been received and is performing really well. We'll continue to curate our market assortment, but we think the real unlock is through further development of our elevated materials in our own brand assortment. So particularly in leather and suede as we position the handbag category for the back half of the year. At the same time, we're learning about further opportunities with elevated market brands with higher price points performing very well in our main stand-alone stores, both in jewelry and handbags. I'd say what we know is our customer responds very well to newness and fashion and generally doesn't see price as the barrier. So it's a great question. I think we'll continue to explore additional opportunities in the accessories area.

Okay. Thank you very much. That concludes the call. Thank you for joining us.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.