AutoZone 2014 Annual Report Download - page 4

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During 2014, we had many successes. We exceeded $9.4 billion in sales, up 5.6% over fiscal year 2013, and we delivered $31.57
in earnings per share, up $16.3% over 2013. All references to growth over prior year in this section are adjusted to reflect comparable
week comparisons as fiscal 2013 had an additional week. We also:
• Expanded our domestic store base by a net 148 stores, for a total of 4,984 stores
• Opened 424 new Commercial programs, ending the year with commercial programs in 77% of our domestic store base
• Increased our presence in Mexico by 40 stores ending with 402 stores
• Opened two additional stores in Brazil, for a total of five locations
• Significantly grew our on-line offerings at autozone.com and autozonepro.com
• Opened 11 additional hub stores, finishing the fiscal year with 166 hubs
• Continued with our industry leading Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) reporting 31.9% for fiscal 2014
• Generated over $1 billion of Operating Cash Flow for the fifth consecutive year
• Repurchased more than $1 billion in shares for the sixth consecutive year
Again, these results were the product of the efforts of all of our AutoZoners and their continued dedication to delivering an
exceptional level of customer service. We have achieved what we have because of their commitments to customer service,
our Pledge, and our Values.
U.S. Retail
We are the country’s largest retailer of automotive aftermarket products with more than 4,900 stores across 49 United States. Our
retail initiatives for 2014 were: (1) Great People Providing Great Service; (2) Leveraging the Internet; (3) Leveraging Technology to
improve the customer experience while optimizing efficiencies; and (4) Improving Inventory Availability.
Our retail initiatives generally don’t change significantly from year to year. Our Great People Providing Great Service initiative has
been and will continue to be a constant as it is imperative we have great people providing great service! This year technology
became a much larger focus for our organization. We are committed to a multi-year approach to enhancing our systems, both
hardware and software, to ensure our AutoZoners have the best, most reliable tools available. In 2014, we significantly increased
our investment in this area and expect an increased level of investment for years to come.
As discussed above, we initiated some significant tests around inventory availability in 2014. We tested daily delivery from some of
our eight domestic distribution centers to selected stores. In other markets, we substantially increased our assortment in two Hub
stores and leveraged the increased assortment across multiple other Hubs and their satellite stores. In both tests, we were pleased
with the incremental sales that were generated and both tests met our rate of return requirements. For 2015, we are continuing to
study these tests with the goal of determining the optimal model across our entire distribution network. Since so much of our hard
parts assortment turns at or just over one time a year, we are being cautious before declaring victory on any of our tests until we
are able to see the year over year results of our work. Although we have not concluded our testing, we believe our positive results
can have a material effect on future performance.
We are looking forward to 2015!
Summary of 2014 Results