Costco Wholesale Corp New (COST) SEC Filing 10-K Annual report for the fiscal year ending Sunday, September 1, 2019

Exhibit 99.1

Press Release

COSTCO WHOLESALE CORPORATION REPORTS FOURTH QUARTER AND FISCAL

YEAR 2019 OPERATING RESULTS

ISSAQUAH, Wash., October 3, 2019 - Costco Wholesale Corporation (“Costco” or the “Company”) (Nasdaq: COST) today announced its operating results for the

Net sales for the quarter were $46.45 billion, an increase of 7.0 percent from $43.41 billion during the similar period last year. Net sales for the fiscal year were $149.35 billion, an increase of 7.9 percent from $138.43 billion during the similar period last year.

Comparable sales for the fourth quarter and the fiscal year were as follows:

Net income for the fourth quarter was $1,097 million, or $2.47 per diluted share, compared to $1,043 million, or $2.36 per diluted share, last year. This year’s fourth quarter was negatively impacted by a $123 million pre-tax reserve to SG&A ($96 million after-tax), or 22 cents per diluted share, related to a product tax assessment.

Net income for the fiscal year was $3.66 billion, or $8.26 per diluted share, compared to $3.13 billion, or $7.09 per diluted share, in the prior year. As previously disclosed and mentioned above, this year’s net income was impacted by a net benefit of $30 million or $0.07 per diluted share from primarily non-recurring items. Last year was positively impacted by a first quarter tax benefit of $41 million or $0.09 per diluted share.

Costco currently operates 783 warehouses, including 544 in the United States and Puerto Rico, 100 in Canada, 39 in Mexico, 29 in the United Kingdom, 26 in Japan, 16 in Korea, 13 in Taiwan, 11 in Australia, two in Spain, one in France, one in Iceland, and one in China. Costco also operates e-commerce web sites in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Korea and Taiwan.

A conference call to discuss these results is scheduled for 2:00 p.m. (PT) today, October 3, 2019, and is available via a webcast on www.costco.com (click on Investor Relations and “Play Webcast”).

Certain statements contained in this document constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. For these purposes, forward-looking statements are statements that address activities, events, conditions or developments that the Company expects or anticipates may occur in the future. In some cases forward-looking statements can be identified because they contain words