Costco Wholesale Corp. came out ahead of an analyst estimate for its first quarter as earnings and comps gained with help from nonfoods.
Costco reported that net income was $1.59 billion, or $3.58 per diluted share, versus $1.36 billion, or $3.07 per diluted share, in the year-previous period.
Earnings per diluted share in the first quarter included a tax benefit of 10 cents, while the metric in the year-past period included a net three-cent benefit, the company noted.
Earnings per diluted share beat a Zacks Investment Research analyst consensus of $3.45, while revenues topped a revenue estimate by 0.22%.
With the impact of fuel price and foreign exchange rate volatility excluded, comparable sales were up 3.9%, with comps in the United States up 2.6%, comps in Canada up 8.2% and comps in other international markets up 7.1%. E-commerce comps gained 6.1%.
In a conference call, Costco CEO Richard Galanti said nonfood comps showed improvement through the quarter. Appliance sales advanced in the mid-20 percentages, he added. Customer traffic in the U.S. gained 3.6%, while average transaction slipped 1.6%.
Net sales were $56.72 billion, and total revenues, including membership fees, were $57.8 billion, the company reported, versus $53.44 billion and $54.44 billion, respectively, in the year-prior period. Operating income was $1.98 billion versus $1.75 billion in the period a year earlier.
