Costco Wholesale Corp New (COST) SEC Filing 10-K Annual Report for the fiscal year ending Sunday, August 29, 2021

Exhibit 99.1

COSTCO WHOLESALE CORPORATION REPORTS FOURTH QUARTER AND FISCAL

YEAR 2021 OPERATING RESULTS

ISSAQUAH, Wash., September 23, 2021 - Costco Wholesale Corporation (“Costco” or the “Company”) (Nasdaq: COST) today announced its operating results for the

Net sales for the quarter increased 17.5 percent, to $61.44 billion from $52.28 billion last year. Net sales for the fiscal year increased 17.7 percent, to $192.05 billion from $163.22 billion last year.

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

Net income for the fourth quarter was $1.670 billion, or $3.76 per diluted share, compared to $1.389 billion, or $3.13 last year. This year’s fourth quarter was negatively impacted by a write-off of certain information technology assets of $84 million pre-tax ($0.14 per diluted share). Last year’s fourth quarter was negatively impacted by incremental expense related to COVID-19 premium wages and sanitation costs of $281 million pretax ($0.47 per diluted share) and a $36 million pretax charge ($0.06 per diluted share) related to the prepayment of $1.5 billion of debt, partially offset by an $84 million pretax benefit ($0.15 per diluted share) for the partial reversal of a reserve related to a product tax assessment taken in fiscal year 2019.

Net income for the fiscal year was $5.01 billion, or $11.27 per diluted share, compared to $4.00 billion, or $9.02 per diluted share in the prior year.

Costco currently operates 817 warehouses, including 565 in the United States and Puerto Rico, 105 in Canada, 39 in Mexico, 30 in Japan, 29 in the United Kingdom, 16 in Korea, 14 in Taiwan, 13 in Australia, three in Spain, and one each in Iceland, France, and China. Costco also operates e-commerce sites in the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom, Mexico, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and Australia.

A conference call to discuss these results is scheduled for 2:00 p.m. (PT) today, September 23, 2021, 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 such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “likely,” “may,” “might,”