Costco Wholesale Corporation (NASDAQ:COST) Q1 2025 Earnings Conference Call December 12, 2024 5:00 PM ET

Company Participants

Gary Millerchip - EVP and CFO
Ron Vachris - President and CEO

Conference Call Participants

Simeon Gutman - Morgan Stanley
Oliver Chen - TD Cowen
Christopher Horvers - JPMorgan
Zhihan Ma - Bernstein
Karen Short - Melius Research
Edward Kelly - Wells Fargo
John Heinbockel - Guggenheim
Rupesh Parikh - Oppenheimer
Peter Benedict - Baird
Greg Melich - Evercore ISI
Scott Mushkin - R5 Capital
Robbie Ohmes - Bank of America
Michael Lasser - UBS
Chuck Grom - Gordon Haskett
Kelly Bania - BMO Capital Markets
Chuck Cerankosky - Northcoast Research
Corey Tarlowe - Jefferies
Laura Champine - Loop Capital

Operator

Good afternoon, and thank you for standing by. My name is Abby, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Costco Wholesale Corporation First Quarter Fiscal 2025 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Thank you.

And I would now like to turn the conference over to Gary Millerchip, Chief Financial Officer. You may begin.

Gary Millerchip

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining Costco's first quarter 2025 earnings call. I'd like to start by reminding you 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 they are made, and the company does not undertake to update these statements, except as required by law. Comparable sales and comparable sales, excluding impacts from changes in gasoline prices and foreign exchange, are intended as supplemental information and are not a substitute for net sales presented in accordance with GAAP.

Before we dive into our financial results for the quarter, I'm delighted to say that Ron Vachris is joining us for today's call.

I'll now hand over to Ron for some opening comments.

Ron Vachris

Thank you, Gary, and good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today.

As we wrap up the first quarter of fiscal 2025, let me make a few brief comments on some of the highlights since we last spoke in September. In the first quarter of fiscal 2025, we opened seven new warehouses. This included one relocation and resulted in six net new buildings, of which four were outside of the U.S.