Costco Wholesale Corporation

on your telephone keypad. And if you'd like to withdraw that question, again, press star one. Thank you. I will now turn the conference over to Gary Millerchip, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Gary, you may begin your conference.

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining the call today. I'd like to start by saying how excited I am to be part of the Costco team, and it's a pleasure to be hosting my first Costco quarterly conference call. The whole Costco team has been incredibly welcoming. And as you might imagine, my first three months working alongside Richard have been a lot of fun. It's also been great visiting warehouses and facilities to immerse myself in the Costco culture and experience firsthand how this is positioning the company for continued growth. Over recent months, I've spent time and met with many analysts and investors, several of whom I know through my prior role. and it's clear you value and appreciate the company's current approach to investor communications. While I can't promise to be able to match the humor that Richard Galante has become famous for, I can promise the same level of open dialogue and transparency you've come to expect. Oh, and to clear up some recent media speculation, I also want to confirm the $1.50 hot dog price is safe. Before I talk about our results, I wanted to mention that Ron Vakras is also joining today's call. Many of you have expressed interest in hearing from Ron, and so we thought it would be a good idea to have Ron join the discussion, and he can also take a few questions. Ron, would you like to add anything before we talk about the quarter?

Thank you, Gary, and again, welcome to Costco. I'm very happy to report that the transition from Richard to Gary has gone very well, and we're very excited to have Gary on board as part of Costco, and I look forward to working together on the growth opportunities ahead for our company. Before we jump into the quarter, I wanted to make a couple of comments on the leadership transition. As Richard has mentioned on previous calls, I've worked closely with Craig Gently for many years, including side by side for the last two years as president. And so the CEO transition has been a very seamless process. Since January, my time has been focused on working closely with teams around the world to ensure we continue to deliver the best quality merchandise at a best value for our members. I'm incredibly proud of our employees. And I believe our consistency of results is a reflection of their commitment to our members and to each other. Consistent with how Craig and Richard manage investor communications, I intend to have Gary host the quarterly conference calls, and I will join his business for MIPS to answer a few questions. So, Gary, let's go to the results, and I'm happy to jump back in for the Q&A portion to field some questions today.