The pharmacy chain's stock has seen steady declines for nearly a decade.
Walgreens is planning potentially sweeping store closures as it faces what its CEO called a “challenging” environment for pharmacies and U.S. consumers.
The pharmacy chain on Thursday morning announced quarterly earnings that fell short of Wall Street expectations. Walgreens' stock dropped more than 20% just minutes into the trading day.
In an interview with CNBC, CEO Tim Wentworth said the company now forecasts weaker consumer spending for the rest of the year.
″We assumed…in the second half that the consumer would get somewhat stronger” but “that is not the case,” Wentworth said.
“The consumer is absolutely stunned by the absolute prices of things, and the fact that some of them may not be inflating doesn’t actually change their resistance to the current pricing,” he added. “So we’ve had to get really keen, particularly in discretionary things.”
Last month, Walgreens, following Target's lead, announced plans to slash prices on some 1,300 items in response to better serve customers it said were increasingly under “financial strain.”
Wentworth didn't state an exact number of closures, but implied it could be as much as 25% of the chain's approximately 8,600 stores.
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