NEW YORK, Jan 9, 2026, 17:17 EST — After-hours
- Costco shares rose about 1% late Friday after a December sales update showed steady demand and faster online growth.
- December net sales rose 8.5% to $29.86 billion; comparable sales rose 7.0% for the five-week period ended Jan. 4.
- Next catalysts include Costco’s January sales update on Feb. 4 and its fiscal Q2 earnings call on March 5.
Costco Wholesale Corp (COST.O) shares were up about 1.1% in after-hours trading on Friday at $924.88, after moving between $911.43 and $929.66 earlier in the day.
The move keeps attention on Costco’s monthly sales updates, which often land weeks ahead of its quarterly earnings and can nudge near-term expectations. December is the key holiday month, and it sits inside the company’s fiscal second quarter.
Investors typically zero in on comparable sales — sales from locations open at least a year — because it strips out the noise of new store openings. They also watch a “core” version that removes the impact of gasoline prices and foreign exchange, two items that can swing sharply month to month for Costco.
Costco said net sales for the five-week retail month of December, ended Jan. 4, rose 8.5% to $29.86 billion. Total company comparable sales rose 7.0% over the period, with digitally-enabled comparable sales up 18.9%; excluding gasoline and currency effects, total company comparable sales rose 6.2%, Costco said. The company also reported net sales of $101.83 billion for the first 18 weeks, up 8.3%, and said it operated 923 warehouses worldwide.
Shares of Walmart, which operates the Sam’s Club warehouse chain, were also higher on Friday, up about 1.3%.
“Net sales for the month came in at $29.86 billion,” Andrew Yoon, Costco’s director of financial planning and investor relations, said in a recorded message reviewing the results. Seeking Alpha
But Costco flagged a long list of uncertainties that can squeeze results, including exchange rates, inflation or deflation, competition, rising employee-related costs and energy and commodity swings, as well as geopolitics including tariffs.
Next up, Costco has scheduled its January sales release for Feb. 4, and its fiscal second-quarter earnings call for March 5. Those dates will put a sharper focus on whether the holiday pace carried into the new year and how costs are tracking into the quarter’s close.
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