UPDATE 2-Urban Outfitters Q4 profit beats Wall St expectations

(Adds details, analyst comments, share movement)

By Swagata Gupta

BANGALORE, March 6 (Reuters) - Clothing and home furnishings retailer Urban Outfitters Inc (URBN.O: Quote, Profile, Research) reported a 50 percent jump in fourth-quarter profit, beating market expectations, helped by strong comparable-store sales across all its brands and channels.

"Disciplined inventory management and good merchandising allowed the company to improve its operating margin," Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Betty Chen said by phone.

Urban Outfitters posted net income of $53.6 million, or 32 cents a share, for the quarter, compared with a net income of $35.7 million, or 21 cents a share, a year ago.

Net sales at the Philadelphia-based retailer rose about 29 percent to $465.4 million, while comparable-store sales grew by 11 percent during the quarter.

Analysts on average had expected the company to earn 29 cents a share, excluding exceptional items, on revenue of $452.6 million, according to Reuters Estimates.

Though inventories in the period grew 11 percent to stock new retail stores, the company said it believes these levels were appropriate to back a healthy positive comparable sales outlook for the first quarter of fiscal 2009.

Sales at stores open for a year or more were up 18 percent at Anthropologie, its brand focussing on affluent women in their thirties, while those at niche brand Free People were up 19 percent. Same-store sales were up 6 percent at the company's namesake brand, which caters to young adults.