chewy inc shares declined in late trading tuesday after executives reported a surprise holiday profit but a shrinking activecustomer count and guidance calling for flat to lesser profit in the year ahead chewy chwy reported a fourthquarter profit of 61 million or a penny a share after losing 15 cents a share in the holiday quarter a year ago revenue grew to 271 billion from 239 billion a year ago easily beating expectations however active customers an important metric for the online petsupplies business declined to 2041 million from 2066 million a year ago a sharper drop than expected “we believe the modest sequential decline in active customers reflects the continued softness in discretionary spending experienced across the broader economy as well as the residual impact of attrition from our 2020 and 2021 cohorts” executives explained in a letter to shareholders analysts on average were expecting a loss of 11 cents a share on sales of 264 billion and active customers of 2052 million according to factset chewy’s stock dropped more than 2 in afterhours trading following a 54 decline in the regular session to 3776 chewy’s stock declined in the regular session after soft guidance from bricksandmortar petsupplies retailer petco health and wellness co inc woof before the market opened wednesday chewy’s forecast was already a hot debate among wall street executives after the company struggled to increase its customer count in the fiscal year that just ended amid macroeconomic concerns “on the guidance front we believe street fy23 estimates are realistic but management forecasts likely incorporate conservatism especially in the hardgoods category amid macro uncertainty similar to guides we have seen thus far in our retail coverage” oppenheimer analysts wrote ahead of the report while maintaining an “outperform” rating and 50 price target chewy executives said in a letter to investors wednesday that they expect fiscal firstquarter sales of 272 billion to 274 billion which would be an increase from 243 billion in the same quarter a year ago analysts on average were expecting 267 billion for the full year executives guided for 111 billion to 113 billion in net sales while analysts on average were projecting sales to grow to 1111 billion from 101 billion in the justcompleted fiscal year the company’s only profit guidance however called for a decline executives said they expect adjustedebitda margin to stay flat or decline up to 50 basis points for the full year “as we look to 2023 we plan to undertake numerous investments to increase our value proposition and lay the foundations for future growth and margin expansion” executives wrote chewy’s stock has declined 169 in the past 12 months as the sp 500 index spx has dropped 113