On Tuesday, retailer of auto parts, AutoZone reported a 9% rise in earnings for the current fiscal year's first quarter, on the back of cautious customers choosing to spend more on repair of their old cars rather than buying new ones.

Also, the company shared that while performance at its existing stores improved, it kept setting up new stores all throughout the quarter.

In the three months up-to November 1, AutoZone posted earnings of $143.3 Million, or $2.82 a share, a substantial gain from the $131.4 million, or $2.23 per share, worth of earnings posted for the same period during last year. Revenue also recorded an 8% rise to $1.59 Billion.

The figure has been exactly in line with the expectation pegged by analysts polled by Thomson Reuters, who had pegged per share earnings of $2.66 on revenue of $1.59 Billion.

Across stores which had been around for at least a year, sales hiked by almost 6%. Also, AutoZone confirmed that it bought back 1.4 million shares of stock during the first-quarter at a price of $204 Million, and this contributed to the rise in per share earnings.

During the quarter, the Memphis based firm opened 38 new stores across America and 5 in Mexico.