Revenue during the quarter went up marginally by 1.14 percent to $5,001.60 million from $4,945.20 million in the previous year period. Gross margin for the quarter expanded 209 basis points over the previous year period to 30.40 percent. Total expenses were 93.15 percent of quarterly revenues, down from 95.48 percent for the same period last year. This has led to an improvement of 232 basis points in operating margin to 6.85 percent.

Operating income for the quarter was $342.40 million, compared with $223.70 million in the previous year period.

Bob Sasser, Chief Executive Officer, stated, "I am proud of our team’s achievements in our third quarter. Our results demonstrated a solid performance in our Dollar Tree segment, continued meaningful progress in our integration of Family Dollar, and our ability to refinance and pre-pay a portion of our outstanding debt in order to reduce future interest costs. After adding back $0.09 per share of expenses related to our debt refinancing, our operating performance of $0.81 per diluted share was near the top end of our third quarter EPS guidance range of $0.76 to $0.82."

For the fourth-quarter, Dollar Tree expects revenue to be in the range of $5,590 million to $5,690 million. Dollar Tree expects revenue to be in the range of $20.67 million to $20.77 million for financial year 2016. The company projects diluted earnings per share to be in the range of $1.24 to $1.33 for the fourth-quarter. For financial year 2016, the company projects diluted earnings per share to be in the range of $3.67 to $3.76.

The company has spent $368.30 million cash to meet investing activities during the nine month period as against cash outgo of $6,876.60 million in the last year period. It has incurred net capital expenditure of $450.30 million on net basis during the nine month period, up 33.98 percent or $114.20 million from year ago period.

The company has spent $290 million cash to carry out financing activities during the nine month period as against cash inflow of $7,148.90 million in the last year period.

Cash and cash equivalents stood at $733.80 million as on Oct. 29, 2016, down 33.71 percent or $373.10 million from $1,106.90 million on Oct. 31, 2015.

Working capital declines
Dollar Tree, Inc has witnessed a decline in the working capital over the last year. It stood at $2,208.20 million as at Oct. 29, 2016, down 10.48 percent or $258.60 million from $2,466.80 million on Oct. 31, 2015. Current ratio was at 2.03 as on Oct. 29, 2016, down from 2.14 on Oct. 31, 2015.

Days inventory outstanding has decreased to 43 days for the quarter compared with 77 days for the previous year period. At the same time, days payable outstanding was almost stable at 32 days for the quarter, when compared with the previous year period.