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Costco on Thursday missed Wall Street’s revenue expectations for its holiday quarter, despite reporting year-over-year sales growth and strong e-commerce gains.
Shares of the retailer fell about 4% in aftermarket trading. The retailer’s stock had hit a 52-week high earlier in the day.
The company offered few details on its quarterly performance in a news release, but will hold an investor call at 5 p.m. ET.
Here’s what the retailer reported for its fiscal second quarter of 2024 compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv:
- Earnings per share: $3.92 vs. $3.62 expected
- Revenue: $58.44 billion vs. $59.16 billion expected
In the three-month period that ended Feb. 18, Costco’s net income rose to $1.74 billion, or $3.92 per share, compared to $1.47 billion, or $3.30 per share, a year earlier.
Costco’s revenue for the quarter increased from $55.27 billion in the year-ago period.
Comparable sales for the company increased 5.6% year over year and 4.3% in the U.S. Excluding changes in gas prices and foreign currency, the metric increased 5.8% overall and 4.8% in the U.S. E-commerce sales grew 18.4% in the quarter compared with the year earlier.
More shoppers came to Costco, and they spent more on their shopping trips during the second quarter. Traffic increased 5.3% across the globe and 4.3% in the U.S., CFO Richard Galanti said on the company’s earnings call. Average ticket increased in the U.S. and worldwide, he said.
Costco has 875 warehouses, including 603 in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. It also has clubs in about a dozen other countries, including Canada, Mexico, Japan and China.
In the second quarter, Costco opened four new clubs, including three in the U.S. and one in Shenzhen, China. That marked its sixth club to open in China, Galanti said. Two of the three new U.S. locations were Costco Business Centers, which are specifically geared toward small business owners like restaurant operators.
As of Thursday’s close, Costco shares have risen nearly 19% since the start of the year. The stock touched a 52-week high of $787.08 earlier in the day and closed at $785.59, bringing the company’s market value to nearly $350 billion.
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