HD - Costco Continues To Do It Its Own Way | Benzinga
On Tuesday, Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ: COST) topped quarterly earnings expectation despite a persistent weakness in sales. Like Walmart (NYSE: WMT) and Target (NYSE: TGT), Costco observed weaker trends in discretionary items as it enjoyed strong grocery sales. While Walmart, Target, and Home Depot (NYSE: HD) complained of retail theft pressuring their profit margins and thinning their bottom lines, Costco has its own answer to theft and organized retail crime which is not a big issue for the membership-based warehouse retailer, even without having the scan-and-go technology like the on that the e-commerce titan, Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) has.
Quarterly Highlights
For the quarter that ended on September 3rd, Costco made $78.9 billion in revenue that rose 9.4%, beating consensus estimates from LSEG’s consensus estimate of $77.9 billion expected. The membership-based warehouse club earned a net income of $2.2 billion, or $4.86 per share, topping expectations of $4.79 and improving from last year’s comparable quarter when it amounted to $1.87 billion, or $4.20 per share. Comparable sales expanded 1.1% YoY, yet only 0.2% in the U.S.
But while Walmart and Target are growing their online sales, Costco’s e-commerce sales contracted 0.9% YoY as consumers pull back on online ...