Costco posts 11.6% sales growth, digital comps jump 21.5%

Costco kept doing what the floor already knows it does best: moving huge amounts of product with tight margins and heavy traffic. In the quarter ended May 10, net sales rose 11.6% to $69.15 billion, digital comparable sales jumped 21.5%, and Costco said it operated 931 warehouses at quarter-end. For workers, that mix points to a busier warehouse, faster turns at the front end, and more pressure on stocking, receiving, gas, and e-commerce support as the business keeps pushing volume.

The company’s first 36 weeks of fiscal 2026 showed the same pattern on a larger scale, with net sales of $203.37 billion and net income of $6.23 billion. Quarterly net income came in at $2.19 billion, or $4.93 per diluted share. Comparable sales rose 9.8% for the quarter, or 6.6% after adjusting for gas inflation and foreign exchange, while digitally enabled comparable sales climbed 21.5%, or 20.8% on an adjusted basis. Costco’s footprint kept expanding too, with four net new warehouse openings in the quarter and a revised full-year target of 26 net new openings.

The membership machine stayed strong. Membership fee income rose 10.7% to $1.37 billion. Paid executive memberships reached 41.2 million, up 9.6 percent. Total paid members hit 82.9 million and total cardholders reached 149 million. Renewal rates held near historic highs at 92.2 percent in the U.S. and Canada and 89.7 percent worldwide, a sign that Costco’s traffic base remains unusually durable even as shoppers remain price sensitive.

Digital demand is adding its own layer of work. Site and app traffic rose 37 percent, and personalized recommendations contributed nearly $5 billion in e-commerce sales, according to company executives. Same-day delivery in the U.S. averaged under 45 minutes and earned a 4.8 out of 5 member satisfaction score. For warehouse teams, that means the digital side is not separate from store labor. It feeds more picks, more substitutions, more staging, and more urgent handoffs between the sales floor and fulfillment.

Fuel also drove volume. Costco said gas volumes set all-time company records for each four-week period in the quarter, with the final five weeks the highest in company history. The company also said it had begun submitting tariff refund claims to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, a move that could eventually affect member prices. With 639 warehouses in the U.S. and Puerto Rico and 115 in Canada, Costco’s scale still depends on the same thing it always has: fast execution, steady staffing, and enough labor to keep the line moving.