Costco Wholesale’s (COST) online sales continue to power its growth, rising 14.6% in April from a year earlier.
Overall sales at Costco in April grew 7.1% from a year ago to $19.80 billion U.S. However, that was a slowdown from 9.4% year-over-year growth recorded in March.
Same-store sales, which measures sales in stores open for more than a full year, rose an annualized 5.6% in April. But that too was a cooler than the 7.7% gain seen in March.
Costco is one of the few companies that still provides monthly same-store sales updates.
Costco doesn’t provide any forward guidance with its quarterly earnings reports, so analysts and investors rely on the monthly sales updates.
Management said that April’s sales were impacted by the timing of Easter this year, which dragged down total and same-store sales by 0.5%.
Still, foot traffic at Costco locations worldwide rose 4.6% and average transaction value increased 1% in April.
Costco is scheduled to report its next quarterly results on May 30.
The stock of Costco has risen 52% in the past 12 months to trade at $763.41 U.S. per share.
