Executive Summary
The initial intent of this analysis was to identify changes in accounting methods within the financial statements of Walgreens and CVS Caremark, as well as to compare and contrast their financial statements, in order to draw conclusions about which company had also have better earnings. However, in the process of this analysis, with the exception of a minor change to lease accounting by Walgreens, there were no major changes in accounting methods identified. In examining the financial statements for these two drugstore industry leaders, the analysis shows that while each company conducts retail drugstore operations in similar ways, their business models for carrying out these operations greatly vary. These variances in …show more content…
Sales from retail pharmacy and pharmacy services segment almost 50% of total revenue year over year basis.

From 2008 to 2011, Walgreens reported a compounded annual growth rate of 6.93%, growing to $13.150 billion in total revenues.Net sales increased by 7.1% to $72.2 billion in fiscal 2011 compared to increases of 6.4% in 2010 and 7.3% in 2009. The acquisition of Duane Reade increased total sales by 1.7% in the current fiscal year compared to an increase of 1.1% last year. Drugstore sales increases resulted from sales gains in existing stores and additional sales from new stores, each of which include an indeterminate amount of market-driven price changes. Sales in comparable drugstores were up 3.3% in 2011, 1.6% in 2010 and 2.0% in 2009. Comparable drugstores are defined as those that have been open for at least twelve consecutive months without closure for seven or more consecutive days and without a major remodel or a natural disaster in the past twelve months.

Prescription sales increased 6.3% in 2011, 6.3% in 2010 and 7.8% in 2009. The acquisition of Duane Reade increased prescription sales by 1.2% in the current fiscal year versus an increase of 0.8% last year. Comparable drugstore prescription sales were up 3.3% in 2011 compared to increases of 2.3% in 2010 and 3.5% in 2009. Prescription sales as a percent of total net sales were