:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/GettyImages-599389182-8aa3f56e3ea84f5188987174ecb62c51.jpg "Costco’s Business Has Been Booming. But Its Stock Has Lagged the Market in 2025.")
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Key Takeaways
- Costco reported quarterly results that topped analysts’ expectations on the top and bottom lines, as its e-commerce sales took off.
- The biggest U.S. warehouse club retailer also saw a big jump in revenue from membership fees.
- Costco shares lost ground on Friday, pushing the stock further into negative territory for the year.
Costco Wholesale Corporation (COST) posted better-than-expected results as its e-commerce business boomed and revenue from membership fees increased.
The biggest U.S. warehouse club retailer late Thursday reported first-quarter fiscal 2026 earnings of $4.50 per share, 19 cents more than what analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha were looking for. Revenue rose 8.3% from a year ago to $67.3 billion, with membership fee revenue growing 14.0% to $1.33 billion. Both were better than forecasts.
Investors appear to have wanted more, as Costco shares were down nearly 2% in afternoon trading. The stock has now lost about 5% of its value in 2025, significantly lagging the performance of the benchmark S&P 500 index and the gains posted by rival Walmart (WMT).
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What Costco calls “digitally enabled comparable store sales” jumped 20.5% in the latest quarter, while overall comparable store sales were up 6.4%.
The company continues to be pleased with the momentum in digital engagement with customers, CFO Gary Millerchimp said on the earnings call. “Our expectation would be that digital sales as we define it would continue to grow at a faster pace over the longer term than our average sales overall.” Those comments came from a transcript provided by AlphaSense.
Costco didn’t provide a full-year outlook.
