Costco Tops Quarterly Earnings, Revenue Views; Comparable Sales Growth Lags

07:12 AM EDT, 09/25/2026 (MT Newswires) -- Costco Wholesale (COST) reported better-than-expected earnings and revenue for its fiscal fourth quarter, though the warehouse chain's comparable sales growth missed market estimates. Net income advanced to $6.75 a share for the quarter ended Aug. 30 from $5.87 a year earlier, the company said late Thursday. The consensus on FactSet was for $6.54. Revenue climbed to $95.72 billion from $86.16 billion, ahead of Wall Street's views for $94.97 billion. Comparable sales, excluding the impacts from changes in gasoline prices and foreign currency, rose 6.7% at the company level, but trailed the 9% growth rate modeled by analysts. The metric increased 7.2% in the US, 4.6% in Canada and 6.2% internationally. Membership fee income increased 7.3% year over year to $1.85 billion. The company ended the three-month period with 84.1 million paid members, representing annual growth of 3.8%, Chief Financial Officer Gary Millerchip said during an earnings call, according to a FactSet transcript. Paid membership growth saw an eighth straight deceleration, partly reflecting an increase in fill-in warehouse locations, which generate fewer new members than white-space properties, and fewer warehouse openings in Asia, Truist Securities said. "The (business) remains incredibly strong, but we may need to see member growth reaccelerate to help re-rate the (stock's) multiple," the brokerage said in a note to clients. Truist lowered its price target on the Costco stock to $955 from $1,011 while keeping its hold rating. The company's shares were down 0.2% in premarket activity Friday. So far in 2026, the stock has increased 4%. Costco's traffic, or shopping frequency, gained 3.3% globally, while the average transaction or ticket was up 3.3%, excluding impacts from gas price inflation and foreign exchange, Millerchip said on the call. The warehouse chain received $184 million related to tariff refunds during the fourth quarter -- comprising $174 million in refunds and $10 million in interest -- representing a "little more than one-third" of the total expected refunds, Millerchip added. Costco reinvested some of the refunds mainly in price reductions on several items during the second half of the quarter, Chief Executive Roland Vachris told analysts. The company intends to open 33 warehouses in fiscal 2027, of which five are relocations, Vachris said. Earlier this year, the US Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration lacked authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose certain tariffs, paving the way for refunds to companies that had paid the duties. "In the first quarter of fiscal year 2027, we have already received a similar amount of refunds as we did in (the fourth quarter), and we intend to continue reinvesting the majority of the dollars we receive in increased member values," Millerchip told analysts. Last month, retail giant Walmart (WMT) said it received "substantially all" of the roughly $2.9 billion of tariff refunds it was eligible for, and aimed to reinvest that into pricing and merchandise. Separately, retailer Target (TGT) lifted its full-year outlook as tariff refunds helped double its fiscal second-quarter earnings year over year.