Costco (COST): FY26 Q2 earnings call, Mar 5, 2026

…to more of those marketing dollars that our vendors and suppliers are spending. Our first priority is really to build the capabilities internally around delivering…

…price deflation and changes in FX. Moving down the income statement to membership fee income. We reported membership fee income of $1.355 billion, an increase…

…before turning it back over to Gary. Let me start by addressing tariffs, as I know this topic is of great interest to our members…

…last year and 147.2 million cardholders, up 4.7% year-over-year. In terms of renewal rates, at Q2 end, our U.S. and Canada renewal rate was 92.1%,…

…as eggs, cheese, coffee and some paper products as we saw lower inflation in these commodities. We will continue to be a pricing authority and…

…subject to Board approval, we want to continue to grow the regular dividend because we think that's a core sort of fundamental part of demonstrating…

…buying efforts globally to lower the cost of goods, leaning in on Kirkland Signature, where we have the most control of the supply chain and…

…both in employees and in pricing and in the business overall and expansion, as Gary mentioned and I mentioned in the earlier talk that we…

…relatively stable in Q2, and our merchants feel good about our current inventory position heading into the spring. That said, as we look at the…

…us in terms of adding younger new members and helping with total revenue growth and some of the comments I made about the membership growth,…

…balance on our balance sheet today. And we do think, with our valuation, the special dividend is probably the most effective way to return excess…