Costco Wholesale Corp. maintained its momentum in March, amid strong digital growth and a calendar shift that added an extra shopping day to its results.
The membership warehouse club giant’s net sales rose 8.6% to $25.51 billion in the “retail” month of March (the five weeks ended April 6). Total comparable sales increased 6.4%, rising 7.5% in the United States, and 4.1% in Canada. International comp sales rose 2.9%.
Comparable e-commerce sales at Costco rose 16.2% in March.
Total comparable sales excluding the impacts from changes in gasoline prices and foreign exchange rose 9.1%, rising 8.7% in the U.S., and 10.6% in Canada. E-commerce comps rose 17.5%.
March had one additional shopping day versus last year, due to the calendar shift of Easter, noted Costco. This positively impacted total and comparable sales by approximately one and one-half percent.
Net sales for the first 31 weeks rose 8.3% to $158.87 billion. Comparable sales for the period are up 16.8%.
[READ MORE: Online grocery sales up 21% in March]
Costco currently operates 903 locations, including 623 in the United States and Puerto Rico, 109 in Canada, 41 in Mexico, 36 in Japan, 29 in the United Kingdom, 19 in Korea, 15 in Australia, 14 in Taiwan, seven in China, five in Spain, two in France, and one each in Iceland, New Zealand and Sweden. Costco also operates e-commerce sites in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Mexico, Korea, Taiwan, Japan and Australia.
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