Dive Brief:
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Best Buy’s Q1 earnings beat expectations thanks to healthy demand for certain mobile phones, big-screen televisions, and appliances, the retailer said on Thursday.
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Q1 revenue fell to $8.56 billion from $8.64 billion, but it was enough to beat analysts' $8.47 billion estimate.
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Q1 same-store sales rose 0.6%, handily beating estimates of 0.4% decline, and delivering a profit of $129 million or $0.36 per share. Last year at this time, the company saw a profit of $461 million. The retailer said it spent $178 million in Q1 in restructuring and taxes.
Dive Insight:
Between a healthier economy and better prices, higher-quality televisions have come within reach of more consumers, which helped make Best Buy’s Q1 a better-than-expected one. Electronics have been slow to sell for several quarters, and Q1 isn’t usually lucrative for the category as it comes off the holiday quarter. The success of the quarter is also likely thanks in large part to Apple’s iPhone 6 launch.
“Throughout the quarter, our strategy of delivering ‘Advice, Service and Convenience at Competitive Prices’ continued to resonate with our customers," said Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly. "While merchandising, marketing and operational execution were the tactical drivers of our better-than-expected first quarter financial results, strategically, we believe the cumulative impact of the progress we have made to improve our multi-channel customer experience is what has allowed us to consistently outperform the market."
