Costco reports healthy sales gain for fiscal year

At Costco Wholesale Corp., net sales for the fourth quarter were $77.43 billion, an increase of 9.4 percent from $70.76 billion. Net sales for the fiscal year, which includes an extra week, reached $237.71 billion, up 6.7 percent from $222.73 billion. In Canada, where Costco has 107 stores, comp sales were up 8.1 percent. But excluding the increase in gas prices and the impact of foreign currency exchange, the comp increase was a more modest 1.7 percent.