$COST Misses Holiday-Quarter Revenue Expectation

Costco ( COST ) missed Wall Street’s revenue expectations for its holiday quarter, despite reporting YOY sales growth and strong e-commerce gains.

COST Shares fell about 4% in aftermarket trading on Thursday but the stock bounced and surged by about 1.6% in Premarket trading on Friday. The company’s stock had hit a 52-week high earlier in the day.

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 with $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.

Sales of food and sundries, a category that includes snack foods and beverages, were up by mid single digits in the quarter, CFO Richard Galanti said on the company’s earnings call. Fresh foods were up high single digits and nonfoods were up mid single digits.

Ancillary businesses, which includes more service-related purchases like travel, were up by low single digits, he said. Costco’s food court, pharmacy and optical centers were top performers in the quarter and gas was down low single digits as the price per gallon fell.


Costco ( COST ) 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 ( COST ) 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.

Costco ( COST ) 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.

Costco's Digital growth
Costco ( COST ) has made changes to its website to improve the experience for online shoppers. It’s also tweaked its business to be more digitally savvy.

E-commerce sales grew 18.4% in the quarter compared with the year earlier. For example, Costco ( COST ) rolled out a new mobile app homepage in February, which loads in less than two seconds compared with eight seconds previously — a move he said was crucial since about 60% of its e-commerce business is done through its mobile app and mobile browser.

It rolled out Apple Pay last week to all members online. And it’s adding more merchandise to Costco Next, a seller platform that allows members to buy directly from some of the retailer’s suppliers at a discounted price.

E-commerce sales have also gained momentum as Costco ( COST ) has gotten better in recent months at touting the value of its online merchandise, particularly for big-ticket items like appliances, mattresses and tires.

App downloads were up 2.8 million in the quarter and and currently total about 33 million, Galanti said.

Membership fees
Costco ( COST ) has seen more membership sign-ups as the company has cracked down on membership sharing, Galanti said. During the pandemic, he said the warehouse club noticed more people using their mom or dad’s membership card and let it slide. Then, he said, the membership sharing grew because self-checkout became more common at clubs.

Investors have been waiting for Costco ( COST ) to raise its membership fees for more than a year. The company has typically increased its annual fee roughly every five and a half years. It last hiked fees in June 2017.

But Galanti said the company is not hiking the fee yet. Though he added, “It’s when, not if.”