Home Depot doesn't plan tariff price hikes

Home Depot stuck by its full-year sales forecast, and a top executive said the retailer doesn’t plan to hike prices because of tariffs.

Home Depot on Tuesday stuck by its full-year sales forecast as a top executive told CNBC the retailer doesn’t plan to hike prices because of tariffs.

“Because of our scale, the great partnerships we have with our suppliers and productivity that we continue to drive in our business, we intend to generally maintain our current pricing levels across our portfolio,” Chief Financial Officer Richard McPhail told CNBC in an interview.

More than half of what the company sells comes from the U.S., he said. McPhail added that Home Depot and its suppliers have worked to diversify the source of the company’s imports over the past several years, including by decreasing the share of purchases that come from China. By this time next year, no single country outside of the U.S. will represent more than 10% of the company’s purchases, he said.

Home Depot’s pricing strategy is at odds with Walmart, which said last week that it would have to raise prices as soon as late May to cover higher costs from tariffs. The decision to keep prices the same — at least for now — also comes as a sluggish housing market causes the retailer’s sales to stagnate.

On an earnings call, McPhail said Home Depot has the scale and flexibility to manage higher tariffs, but added that keeping prices stable could also help its business.