Notes from https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2024/09/26/costco-wholesale-cost-q4-2024-earnings-call-transc/ - Costco Wholesale (COST) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

• Costco
  • 333,000 employees worldwide
  • warehouse managers
  • fiscal year 2024
    • 30 new warehouse openings - 1 relocation and 29 net new
    • warehouses in 47 states in U.S.
  • guidance for fiscal year 2025
    • 29 new warehouse openings - 3 relocation and 26 net new
  • Q4 results
    • net income is up 9% YoY
    • 76.2 million paid household members
    • 136.8 million cardholders
    • 35.4 million paid executive memberships
    • average age of members is going down
    • tax rate in Q4 2024 was 24.4% compared to 27.1% in Q4 2023
    • capital expenditure for the total year is $4.71 billion
    • Kirkland Signature Boneless Chicken Tender lines
    • paneer cheese, Punjabi cookies, and Fried Tofu Kimbap
    • KS Organic Golden Maple Syrup and KS Aerosol Whipped Cream
    • reduced prices for KS Standard Foil, KS Macadamia nuts, KS Spanish Olive Oil, KS Baguette 2 pack
    • new Japan-produced Kirkland Signature Paper Towels
    • good flow of products through Panama and Baltimore
    • The Red Sea is a remaining pain point
    • Costco Next, Costco's curated marketplace
    • July wage increase
  • card readers at the front door give our operators real-time traffic counts throughout the day. So, we're able to adjust front-end lines that we need to open and close lines based on the fluctuations of business. We can monitor our fresh foods a little better because we know what the traffic counts look like and so forth.
  • membership card scanners were rolled out to about 350 U.S. warehouses
  • head operator, Russ Miller
  • it really is about the cadence of them opening
  • We wouldn't normally comment on cadence for the year ahead either.
  • our cadence of our earnings growth across '25 is likely to be less linear than you would probably typically expect
  • This is X on for Y
  • traditionally increased the membership fee every five years
  • hot dog pricing at \$1.50 and the rotisserie chicken at \$4.99
  • members and consumers, in general, are maybe shifting a little bit of spend from food away from home to food at home
  • we're our own biggest competitor
  • average wage is just north of $30 an hour in US