Kay Jewelers parent Signet expects to keep taking market share, investing in growth, says CEO

Signet Jewelers expects to further expand its market share in the coming years, CEO Gina Drosos told CNBC on Thursday, contending the company’s successful transformation has made those ambitions realistic.

“What I think is very exciting is we now have the financial fitness to invest in our business consistent and to drive share gains over time,” Drosos said in an interview on “Mad Money.”

Signet gained 270 basis points of market share in its fiscal 2022, the parent company of Zales and Kay Jewelers reported earlier Thursday, bringing its slice of the pie to 9.3%. A basis point equals 0.01%.

“We feel poised to be able to continue to be able to do that,” said Drosos, who has led Signet since 2017. Under her leadership, Signet has tried to right size its store footprint, while building out its ecommerce operations.

Signet’s online sales were $556 million in fiscal 2022, up 85.4% compared with its fiscal 2020, which ended Feb. 1, 2020, before the worst economic impacts of the Covid pandemic were felt. Overall sales of $2.8 billion in fiscal 2022 represented 30.6% growth compared with fiscal 2020.

Drosos said Signet’s focus on ecommerce is an important part of its broad strategy to gain market share and, by extension, grow revenue. Another important piece is simply expanding the jewelry market overall, the CEO said.

“With our targeted marketing, with our data and analytics, we have the capability to target new customers with the right message at the right time, and so they already come to our websites and to our stores as ready buyers,” Drosos said. “We saw a lot of people come into the category last year. The category was up about 20%, but a disproportionate number of those came into Signet.”

Signet shares rose roughly 7% Thursday as investors cheered the company’s financial results. Fourth-quarter revenue and same-store sales were above expectations, while earnings per share of $5.01 were in line with estimates, according to Refinitiv.

Signet’s stock has been a strong performer over the past 12 months, advancing 40% as of Thursday’s close at $83.14 per share. That’s far better than the S&P 500’s 11% in that same span.

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