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Retail

Costco (COST) Sales Rise More Than Expected

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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High-end big-box retailer Costco (NASDAQ: COST) had a better September than expected as revenue rose 8% to $9.31 billion. Same-store sales were up 6% worldwide. Excluding gas prices, the increase was 5%.

Final net sales for the 53-week fiscal year 2012 ended September 2, 2012, were $97.06 billion, an increase of 12% from $87.05 billion during the 52-week fiscal year 2011. Net sales for the 17-week fiscal fourth quarter ended September 2, 2012, were $31.52 billion, an increase of 14% from $27.59 billion during the 16-week fiscal fourth quarter of fiscal 2011.

Costco’s numbers are a critical measure of big-box retail activity. It is the member of the group that includes Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (NYSE: WMT) and Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT). Among them quarterly retail sales are well above $150 billion.

The Costco numbers are encouraging as the year-end holiday period approaches. Many retailers make all of their profits in the final two months of the year.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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