Costco Wholesale
Q1 2023 Earnings Call
Dec 08, 2022, 5:00 p.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Costco Wholesale Corporation fiscal Q1 2023 conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode, and please be advised that this call is being recorded. After the speakers' prepared remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator instructions] And now, at this time, I'll turn the call over to Costco's CFO, Richard Galanti.
Richard, please go ahead.
Richard Galanti -- Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Bo, and good afternoon to everyone. I will start by stating that these discussions will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual events, results, and/or performance to differ materially from those indicated by such statements. The risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those outlined in today's call, as well as other risks identified from time to time in the company's public statements and reports filed with the SEC.
Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date that they are made, and the company does not undertake to update these statements, except as required by law. In today's press release, we reported operating results for the first quarter of fiscal '23, the 12 weeks ended this past November 20. Reported net income for the quarter was $1.364 billion or $3.07 per diluted share. That compared to $1.324 billion or $2.98 a share last year.
This year's results included a charge of $93 million pre-tax or $0.15 per share, primarily related to downsizing our charter shipping activities, and a tax benefit of $53 million or $0.12 per diluted share related to stock-based compensation. Last year's results included an asset write-off of $118 million pre-tax or $0.20 per diluted share and a tax benefit of $91 million or $0.21 a share related to stock-based compensation. Additionally, the strength of the U.S. dollar resulted in our foreign company earnings translating into fewer U.S.
dollars. With 25% to 30% of our earnings generally -- generated outside of the United States, this negatively impacted earnings by about $0.12 per share. In terms of sales, net sales for the first quarter increased 8.1% or $53.44 billion versus $49.42 billion reported last year. On a comparable sales basis during the first quarter, reported U.S.