Ernie Herrman
Chief Executive Officer and President at TJX Companies
Thanks, John. I'll pick it up with some full year divisional highlights. As we saw with our strong fourth quarter sales, every division delivered comp increases for the full year, with customer transactions driving the increases across the businesses. Again, we believe this is a strong indicator of our ability to continue gaining market share and it underscores our wide customer demographic. Beginning with Marmaxx. Overall sales well exceeded $30 billion. Comp store sales increased a very strong 6%. We also surpassed 2,500 total T.J. Maxx and Marshalls stores. Marmaxx's apparel and home categories, both comped up for the year.
Further, we saw consistently strong comp sales increases across regions and income demographics. As to Marmaxx's profitability, we were extremely pleased to see full year adjusted segment profit margin improved significantly to 13.7%. As we look ahead, we are very excited about the opportunities to see -- that we see to grow our customer base, drive sales, open new stores and increase the profitability of our largest division. At Sierra, which is reported with Marmaxx, we were pleased with the continued sales growth. At our online businesses, we added new categories and brands throughout the year to deliver the same freshness and excitement online as we do in our stores. At HomeGoods, annual sales grew to nearly $9 billion and comps grew 3%.
It was great to see the home business return to positive comp sales trends. We are particularly pleased with the acceleration we saw in the second half of the year, with comp sales increasing high single digits. Similar to Marmaxx, we saw consistent performance across regions and income demographics. HomeGoods adjusted profitability also improved significantly to 9.4% and getting closer to our goal of returning this division to a double-digit profit margin. During the year, we opened a combined 34 HomeGoods and HomeSense stores. Long term, we see exciting potential to bring our eclectic mix of home fashions to even more consumers across the United States. Moving to TJX Canada.
Full year sales were $5 billion and comp store sales increased 3%. Adjusted segment profit margin on a constant currency basis was 14%. With more than 550 stores across Canada, we are one of the largest apparel and home retailers in the country. We are a top destination for consumers seeking branded merchandise at amazing value. We continue to see opportunities to expand our footprint across Canada and attract new shoppers to all three of our banners. At TJX International. Full year sales approached $7 billion and comp store sales were up 3%. Adjusted segment profit margin on a constant currency basis was 4.6%. As a reminder, in the second quarter, this division's profitability was significantly impacted by a reserve related to a German government COVID receivable.
In Europe, we believe our sales growth outperformed many other major brick-and-mortar apparel retailers in a difficult economy. Australia delivered very strong sales growth, and we continue to open stores and new markets. Going forward, we are confident that we can grow our retail banners in each country that we operate in and are highly focused on improving this division's profitability. Going forward, I am confident that we are well positioned to continue our growth around the world and in many kinds of economic and retail environments. Let me briefly remind you of the key characteristics of our business that we believe are tremendous advantage. First is our relentless focus on offering our shoppers great value on every item every day.
For us, value means delivering consumers the right combination of brand, fashion, price and quality as always. Second is the flexibility of our business model that allows us to shift our buying, distribution and store mix to quickly react to the hottest trends in the marketplace and changing consumer preferences. Further, the globalness of our business allows us to create a differentiated treasure hunt shopping experience in every country that we operate in. Third, we successfully operate stores across a wide customer demographic. Our ability to offer a differentiated mix of good, better and best merchandise at each of our stores allows us to appeal to value-conscious shoppers across a broad range of income demographics.
Further, each of our divisions continue to affect an outsized number of younger customers to its stores, attract an outsized number of younger customers to our stores, which we believe bodes well for the future. Next, we are extremely confident that there is more than enough inventory available in the marketplace to support our growth plans. In 2023, our more than 1,300 buyers source goods from a universe of more than 21,000 vendors, including thousands of new ones. As we continue to grow our top line, we believe we become even more appealing to vendors as we offer them an attractive way to grow their business. Fifth, we continue to see opportunities for store growth around the world.
We believe we can grow our global store base by at least another 1,300-plus stores over the long term with just our existing banners in our current countries. Last, but certainly not least, is our exceptional talent and strong culture. I truly believe the depth of off-price knowledge and expertise and the longevity of our talent within TJX is unmatched. We continue to invest in teaching and training our associates to develop the next generation of leaders within our company. Finally, I am so proud of our culture, which I believe is a major differentiator and another key component of our success. Turning to corporate responsibility.
Our teams across the company did great work on our initiatives in each of our four pillars: workplace, communities, environment and responsible business. Our 2023 global corporate responsibility report summarizes our efforts and progress within this work, as I shared last quarter. Our value mission extends to our corporate responsibility efforts, including supporting our associates, giving back in our communities, helping mitigate our impact on the environment and operating our business ethically. I'm pleased to share that in fiscal 2024, we supported more than 2,000 nonprofit organizations globally through our TJX foundations including nonprofit partners in all 50 states within the United States.
Through our grant funding and in partnership with our generous customers, we provided more than 30 million meals through our nonprofit partners that people experiencing food and security. And our associates across the globe continue to be engaged in this work, running give a dollar campaigns in our stores, participating in our associate nominated grants program, helping to build homes for those in need, serving his career coaches for students and more. These are just some examples of work our teams are doing in our communities, and we invite you to visit tjx.com to learn more.
Summing up, we are very proud of our team's performance in 2023 and are in a great position as we enter 2024. We are confident in our plans this year, and as always, we'll strive to beat them. We remain committed to investing in our business to support our future growth. Longer term, we believe that the combination of our key strengths and history of strong execution sets us up extremely well to continue our successful growth around the world. I am convinced that plenty of opportunities remain to drive sales increased profitability and capture additional market share going forward.
Now I'll turn the call back to John to cover our full year and first quarter guidance. And then we'll open it up for questions.