Consumer Discretionary

Costco Q4 Net Sales $77.43B, Up 9.4% YoY; Total Revenue $78.939B.

Costco Wholesale Executive Said Traffic, Or Shopping Frequency, Up 5.2% Worldwide; 5.0% In The U.S. In Q4,; Q4 Average Transaction Down 3.9% Worldwide, Down 4.5% In The U.S., Due To Weak Big-ticket Discretionary Demand, Gas Price Deflation.

Costco Executive Said At Q4 End, U.S. And Canada Membership Renewal Rates Stood At 92.7%,; Ended Q4 With Paid Household Members Up 7.9% Vs A Year Ago.

Costco Executive Said- Gross Margin In Q4 Came In At 10.60%, Up 42 Basis Points Vs A Year Ago.

When asked about raising annual fees, CFO says ‘you’ll see it happen at some point’ Costco Wholesale Corp.’s financial chief assured analysts late Tuesday that theft hasn’t been a problem over the past year, after the membership warehouse chain reported quarterly results that topped Wall Street expectations. Costco (COST) reported fourth-quarter net income of $2.16 billion, or $4.86 a share, compared with $1.87 billion, or $4.20 a share, in the year-ago period, and revenue of $78.94 billion, up from $72.09 billion in the year-ago quarter. Analysts on average expected earnings of $4.82 a share on revenue of $78.81 billion, according to FactSet. Sales at stores open for at least a year rose 1.1%, or 3.8% adjusted for gasoline and currency, compared with the Street’s 3.5% growth estimate. Total annual revenue rose to $242.29 billion from $226.95 billion in the previous fiscal year, while analysts were forecasting $242.17 billion in revenue.

Inflation has continued to recede for Costco in the latest quarter. CFO Richard Galanti says on a call with analysts that inflation was lower sequentially in the fiscal fourth quarter at 1% to 2%, compared with 3% to 4% in the prior quarter. Galanti says inflation trended down during the quarter as well. Still, Galanti makes no projection about where the trend will go in the next year. “Who knows what tomorrow brings,” he says.