Customers shop at a Costco Wholesale store on January 31, 2025 in Chicago, Illinois.
Scott Olson | Getty Images
Costco on Thursday reported an earnings miss, but beat expectations for revenue for the second quarter.
Here’s how the wholesale company did compared with what Wall Street was expecting for the quarter ended Feb. 16, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:
- Earnings per share: $4.02 vs. $4.11 expected
- Revenue: $63.72 billion vs. $63.13 billion expected
Costco CEO Ron Vachris said although it’s difficult to forecast the impact of tariffs, the company aims to minimize cost increases for members. A third of its U.S. sales are from imports, he said, and less than half of those come from China, Mexico and Canada.
“In uncertain times, our members have historically placed even greater importance on the value of high-quality items at great prices, and our teams will continue to rise to this challenge by leveraging our global buying power, strong supplier relationships and innovation,” Vachris said.
Second-quarter revenue increased 9% to $63.72 billion, from $58.44 billion during the same quarter in fiscal 2024. Net sales for the quarter rose 9.1% to $62.53 billion, compared to $57.33 billion in the year-ago period.
Membership fees for the quarter totaled $1.19 billion, up from $1.11 billion in the second quarter of 2024, with the company reporting 78.4 million paid memberships and 140.6 million total cardholders. Worldwide, Costco’s membership renewal rate came in at 90.5%, an increase of 0.1% from last quarter.
The retailer raised its annual membership fees in September for the first time since 2017, though CFO Gary Millerchip said the impact of the increase on this quarter’s fee total was only 3%.
Costco reported a net income for the second quarter of $1.79 billion, or $4.02 per share, compared with a net income of $1.74 billion, or $3.92 per share, during the second quarter of fiscal 2024.
Quarterly comparable sales, which Costco defines as sales from warehouses and e-commerce sites open for more than a year, rose 6.8% year over year, compared with the StreetAccount estimate of 6.4%, and were up 8.3% in the U.S. Comparable sales for e-commerce rose 20.9% year over year.
Costco’s fresh foods category experienced growth in the high single digits, Millerchip said. Continuing a trend from last quarter, sales of meat increased by double digits, Millerchip said, as consumers shifted toward lower-cost proteins like ground beef.
The meat and bakery sections drove the fresh foods category to lead Costco’s categories in inflation, though overall inflation was in the low single digits, he added.
