Ralph Lauren Revenues Top $8B in Another Year of Growth

The company also handily beat fourth-quarter earnings projections.

May 21, 2026, 8:56am

Updated 4:07 p.m. ET May 21

Ralph Lauren Corp.’s American style dream has hit a new milestone.

The company’s fourth-quarter revenues rose by 17 percent to $2 billion, a 12 percent increase in constant currencies, putting the top line over $8 billion for the first time last year.

And Patrice Louvet, president and chief executive officer, is looking higher still.

He rattled off the approximate revenues of the giants Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Dior and Hermès — which are leaning more toward $20 billion or higher — and then Ralph Lauren, proving again that fashion’s top players always have a keen sense of the competition. But Louvet suggested the size game was all a little academic, and that chasing revenues was a dangerous path.

“The focus for us is now to race to a big number,” he said. “We’re playing the long game. We want to build in a very deliberate sequenced way the business, getting new consumers excited about what we have to offer, bringing in the new generation. We’re not guided by a big financial target.

“We do believe there’s significant growth runway for us because if you look at the market we play in, the way we’ve defined the space we play in, it’s worth about $400 billion and it’s growing low-single digits,” he said. “So at an $8 billion company, that’s a 2 percent market share. There’s room to grow, but the key is to sustain it. For it to be sustainable, it’s got to be done in a quality way. So it’s got to be done through storytelling that’s elevated. It’s got to be done through a product offering where there’s quality, where there’s value perception, where there’s a durability and timelessness.”

For the quarter ended March 28, Ralph Lauren’s net profits increased 17.5 percent to $151.6 million. That translated into adjusted earnings per share of $2.80, which was 26 cents ahead of the $2.54 analysts forecast, according to Yahoo Finance.

Investors felt good about the quarter and the trajectory, trading shares of the company up 13.8 percent to $374.80 on Thursday, giving it a market capitalization of $22.7 billion.

The business is working around the world and Louvet is looking to press his advantage. By region during the quarter:

North American sales were up 8 percent to $763 million, with a 16 percent comparable store sales increase and flat wholesale sales.

European revenues increased 18 percent to $620 million, a 6 percent rise in constant currencies.

Asian revenues advanced by 31 percent to $564 million, a 28 percent rise in constant currencies.

For this fiscal year, the company is looking for revenues to see a midsingle-digit increase, centered around 4 percent to 5 percent, on a 52-week comparable basis.

“Sweaters are now the biggest business in this company followed by outerwear,” Louvet said. “These are categories that were not necessarily priorities a few years back, but as we put the emphasis on it, as we really raise the bar on quality and on design and on the breadth of offering, we’re seeing incredible consumer response. We’re not chasing growth for growth’s sake.”

Polo Ralph Lauren Fall 2026 Ready-to-Wear Collection — Polo Ralph Lauren fall 2026 Courtesy of Ralph Lauren

Ralph Lauren’s increases come in an increasingly uncertain retail landscape.

“We see consumer confidence quite low both in North America and in Europe,” Louvet said. “In Europe, we obviously see the impact of the Middle East war. Now, that’s big picture macro. When you then bring that back to Ralph Lauren, our core consumer tends to be a more elevated consumer and therefore is indeed likely benefiting from the stock market performing well and it’s also I think just discerning in terms of where they invest their money.”

And that’s how the CEO sees a Ralph Lauren purchase, as an investment.

Still, Louvet knows he has to stay on his toes.

“You have to separate the noise from the signal and there’s so much noise,” he said. “Consumer confidence is a very interesting one. If you ask people, ‘Well, how do you feel about the environment?’ Then they say, ‘Well, I feel horrible.’ And then you ask them, ‘Well, how do you feel about your personal situation?’ And a number of them will say, ‘Well, I’m actually OK.’”

Like his CEO peers, Louvet is worrying over things he can control while acknowledging just how much the world is speeding up.

“We’re not dependent on the moment, a trend, a channel, a brand, or a consumer group, but really have these multiple drivers kicking in for us, which really talks to the durability of the model,” Louvet said. “While the environment remains uncertain, we remain clearly on offense.”

That statement being true and not a convenient thing to say is a testament to just how much the Ralph Lauren business — and the fashion industry — has changed even in the last decade.

Ralph Lauren, along with Coach-parent Tapestry Inc., was among the first big U.S. brands to realize that they needed to really invest in themselves and not depend on price promotions to drive sales. And the turnaround has been remarkable.

“Ralph Lauren from 10, 15 years ago, its business was dependent on wholesale, mid-tier wholesale, off-price and outlets and then heavy discounting,” said Louvet, who joined the company in 2017. “But the work that we’ve done has been to completely evolve that to go back to the luxury roots of this company and to make sure that every touchpoint the consumer has is consistent with this more elevated positioning.”

Case in point, the outlet business, which is reported in the company’s direct-to-consumer channel, which accounts for 70 percent of total sales.

“We’re actually very proud of our outlet business,” the CEO said. “We are not expanding the footprint of our outlet business. If anything, we’re actually pulling back on the number of locations that we have to make sure that where we show up, we show up in a way that’s consistent with the image we want to project.”

At the same time, the outlet experience is also being elevated, with clienteling services that had been reserved for full price locations and marketing activations around key moments, like the Olympics.

“The delineation between the two is really going away,” said Louvet, referring to the brand’s outlet and full-price doors. “We want to make sure wherever the consumer engages with us, they see the Ralph Lauren brand equity and get the Ralph Lauren experience consistently.”

On a conference call, Justin Picicci, chief financial officer, told analysts that the company’s average unit retail price was growing, but slowing some after its big run up.

AUR’s rose 15 percent last year and are forecast to be up in the midsingle digits this year.

“Outlets [have] always been the channel that probably had the most runway when we started the elevation journey,” Picicci said. “It’s where we’ve made the most progress on AUR growth and we probably still have the most opportunity as we look ahead. If you think about discount rate as an example, so many levers to assess and activate frequency, depth duration, breadth of our product is included within promotion. As we get sharper with product performance analytics, customer segmentation, leveraging AI, we’re going to be able to get more price.”

But in a world filled with both hopes and fears of artificial intelligence, the brand vision remains humanscaled.

Ralph Lauren, executive chairman and chief creative officer, said: “For nearly 60 years, our brand has stood for optimism, quality, authenticity, and a life well lived. From the passion and pursuit of greatness at the Olympics — the world’s biggest stage in sports — to joyful traditions like Lunar New Year, we are bringing people together through timeless style that celebrates life’s meaningful moments.”