Costco Wholesale
Q4 2022 Earnings Call
Sep 22, 2022, 5:00 p.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Thank you for standing by, and welcome to Costco's fourth quarter fiscal 2022 earnings conference call. [Operator instructions] I would now like to hand the call over to CFO, Richard Galanti. Please go ahead.
Richard Galanti -- Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Latif, and good afternoon to everyone. I'll start by stating that these discussions will include forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and 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 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 fourth quarter of fiscal 2022, the 16 weeks ended this past August 28. The net income for the quarter was $1.868 billion or $4.20 per diluted share compared to $1.67 billion or $3.76 per diluted share a year ago. Last year's fourth quarter was negatively impacted by an asset write-off of $84 million pre-tax or $0.14 per diluted share. Net income for the fiscal year totaled $5.84 billion or $13.14 a share compared to $5.01 billion or $11.27 per diluted share in the prior fiscal year.
Net sales for the fourth quarter increased 15.2% to $70.76 billion as compared to $61.44 billion reported last year in the fourth quarter. On a comparable sales basis from the fourth quarter, U.S. for the 16-week period on a reported basis had comp sales of 15.8%. When you exclude gas inflation and FX -- we'll won't be any FX, gas inflation, it'd be 9.6%, Canada, 13.4% reported, 13.7% ex gas and FX, other international, 2.9% reported and 11.3% ex gas and FX.
So all told, total company was reported as 13.7%, and excluding gas and FX, plus 10.4%. Separately, e-commerce, 7.1% reported and again, excluding FX, 8.4%. In terms of the Q4 comp sales metrics, traffic or shopping frequency increased 7.2% worldwide and up 5.2% in the U.S. Our average transaction or ticket was up 6% worldwide and up 10% in the U.S.