best buy The consumer electronics retailer, aiming to break free from slumping sales, announced its first-quarter financial results on Thursday, with both sales and final profit exceeding expectations.
The company said sales increased slightly, led by 2% like-for-like sales growth. The company reaffirmed its outlook for full-year sales of $41.2 billion to $42.1 billion and adjusted earnings per share of $6.30 to $6.60. It expects like-for-like sales to be in the range of 1% decrease to 1% increase.
The company said gaming, computing, mobile phones and services were the biggest growth drivers in the quarter, partially offset by lower consumer electronics sales.
Best Buy stock ended Thursday up 15%.
“Our comparable sales increased 2% year-over-year, exceeding our expectations. We had positive margins across most of our major product categories and strong performance in our Best Buy advertising and marketplace initiatives,” CEO Corie Barry said in a release. “We also drove operating margin expansion and EPS growth.”
Including even more retailers walmart and target The company is leaning into advertising and third-party marketplace businesses, which can drive sales at higher margins than traditional products.
Here’s how Best Buy’s fiscal first-quarter results compared to Wall Street expectations, according to a survey of analysts by LSEG.
Earnings per share: $1.28 adjusted vs. $1.23 expected Revenue: $8.94 billion vs. $8.83 billion expected
Best Buy reported net income of $276 million, or $1.31 per share, for the year ended May 2, up from $202 million, or 95 cents per share, in the year-ago period. Sales increased slightly to $8.94 billion from $8.77 billion the previous year. Excluding one-time charges, including costs to restructure its health business, Best Buy reported adjusted earnings per share of $1.28.
The results were announced just over a month after the company appointed Jason Bonfig as its new CEO, replacing Barry in the fall. The leadership change was part of Best Buy’s efforts to increase sales and accelerate its business.
“Given this momentum, I believe this is the right time to assume the leadership of Best Buy and step down as CEO later this year,” Barry said in a statement Thursday.
Bonfig said in a release Thursday that he is focused on expanding the company’s reach and improving the customer experience as he prepares to take over on Nov. 1.
Bonfig said in a call with reporters Thursday that the company is leaning toward leveraging artificial intelligence with OpenAI and Gemini to improve the customer experience.
Barry also said that while Best Buy sees customers under pressure from macroeconomic factors such as rising gas prices and inflation, consumers remain “resilient.”
“Technology is more important than ever in people’s lives, and that means everyone is looking for ways to optimize their lives and everyone is looking for ways to optimize their technology,” Barry told reporters.
Best Buy has been suffering from sluggish sales, further hurt by higher tariffs and weaker consumer confidence. Last quarter, Barry said the company was seeing a disconnect between high-income and low-income shoppers, and sales of high-end items were slowing.
Barry said on a conference call with analysts Thursday that the company is not concerned that rising memory costs will impact electronics purchases.
“We don’t see any indicators that indicate customers are bringing forward their purchases. In fact, very few people are really worried about ‘memory,'” Barry said.
He added that because the company is an established importer that imports 2% to 3% of its sales, it is “compliant with the first stage of the duty refund process,” but expects the amount returned to be small relative to its overall sales.
