Costco is opening 5 new stores across the US this summer, as its sales continue to boom after lockdown

• Costco plans to open five new US stores this summer.
• Many retailers are pulling back on physical stores, and Costco is one of a few opening new locations.
• Sales boomed for Costco at the height of the pandemic in 2020, and have remained high.

Costco is opening five new stores across the US.

According to an announcement on its website, Costco will open new stores in: Murfreesboro, Tennessee; Little Rock, Arizona; Moore, Oklahoma; Springfield, Missouri; and Naperville, Illinois. These stores are due to open between July and August, Costco said.

It was also opening one new store in each of Australia and Japan, it said.

Lots of retailers in the US pulled back on physical stores during the pandemic - Costco is one of the few to be opening new locations.

Sales boomed at the warehouse chain at the height of the pandemic, and have remained high. Total revenue for the year ended August 2020 was up 9% to $163 billion. In its most recent quarterly earnings results, reported at the end of May, revenue was up 21.7% to $44.38 billion.

Costco has more than 800 stores globally, 559 of which are in the US and Puerto Rico. In its annual report, the company said it planned to open 20 new locations in 2021.

Costco has become one of the few legacy brick-and-mortar retailers to stave off the threat of Amazon, despite being "stubborn" about going digital, Insider's Alex Bitter recently reported.

While the pandemic spurred on many of its grocery competitors to bet on delivery and pickup for customers that didn't want to shop in-store, Costco has been intentionally slow to follow.

"We don't have our head in the sand on it," CFO Richard Galanti said about more pickup options in an earnings call discussing Costco's 2020 annual results in September. "We look at it. We have people here that study it. And maybe we'll surprise you one day. But at this juncture, we're not prepared to do that."